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The True William Penn 



Uniform with this Volume 

Thb Trub George Washington. By 
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The True 
William Penn 



By 

Sydney George Fisher 

Author of "The True Benjamin Franklin," "Men, Women, and 
Manners in Colonial Times," "The Making of Pennsyl- 
vania," "The Evolution of the Constitution," etc. 



Illustrated 



' In deeds of daring rectitude" 

George Eliot 



Philadelphia 
J. B. Lippincott Company 






Copyright, 1899 

BY 

J. B. LippiNcoTT Company 



• ' • JrW:<> GtSPI BS :r1.CE1 V ED, 






r^.■\< I LL/ 



Eleotrotyped and Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 






Contents 



CHAPTER PAGB 

I.— The Man ii • 

II.— The Times 3^ 

III.— Admiral Penn 39 

IV.— Early Influences 5^ 

V. — The Quakers 67 

VI.— Cavalier or Quaker; or Both 95, 

Vll.— First Imprisonment and Roughness of English 

Life lo? 

VIII. — Controversy, First Principles, and Imprison- 
ment *2I 

IX.— Trial by Jury and Hat Honor 138 

X.— Penn becomes Rich, and also, they said, a 

Dangerous Man X5' * 

XI,— Rest and a Sweetheart 162 

XII.— Persecution, Oaths, and Controversy .... 173 

XIII.— Travels in Holland and Politics at Home . 181 

XIV.— The Holy Experiment of Pennsylvania ... 197 * 

XV. — Great Care with the Constitution and Laws 217 • 

XVI. — First Visit to the Province 229* 

XVII.— Returns to England and becomes a Courtier 252 

XVIII.— Supports the Despotism of James II 280 

XIX.— Suspicions, Conspiracies, and Hiding 302 

XX.— Returns to his Old Way of Life 337* 

XXI. — Pennsylvania Again 343* 

XXII.— A Courtier Again, and Again in Prison ... 360 

XXIIL— The End 377 



List of Illustrations with Notes 

PAGE 

Armor Portrait of Penn in the Possession of 
Major William Dugald Stuart . Frontispiece. 
From a photograph of the painting by permission of Major 
Stuart. The other armor portrait in England in the pos- 
session of J. Merrick Head, Esq., could not be photo- 
graphed, because of extensive alterations at Mr. Head's 
country seat, Pennsylvania Castle. 

Armor Portrait of Penn in the Pennsylvania His- 
torical Society I3 

From a photograph of the painting by permission of the 
Historical Society 

The Place Portrait of Penn 15 

From a photograph of the copy of the painting by Francis 
Place, in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Permission to 
photograph the original in England could not be obtained. 

The Hall Engraving of the Bevan Carving . . 17 

From a photograph of the Hall engraving in the possession 
of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. 

The Bevan Carving of Penn 18 

From a photograph of the carving in the collection of Alfred 
Waterhouse, Esq., Yattendon Court, Berkshire, England. 
The carving appears to have been cut out of a piece of ivory 
too small for it, so that the back of the head has not the 
fulness it should have. Or it may be the carving was an 
alto-relievo with a background from which it has been 
removed. 

The Quaker Meeting 20 

From a photograph of the engraving in the Historical 
Society of Pennsylvania. 

7 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS WITH NOTES 

PAGB 

Penn and Fox 22 

From an enlarged photograph of the engraving of the 
Quaker Meeting in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 

The Richardson Portrait of Penn 24 

From a photograph of the original painting in the posses- 
sion of Mr. E. G. Kennedy, of New York. 

Admiral Penn 55 

From a photograph of the painting by Sir Peter Lely, in 
Greenwich Hospital, London. 

GuLi Springett, Penn's First Wife 163 

From a photograph of an old stipple engraving. 

Algernon Sydney 192 

From a photograph of an old engraving in the collection of 
Mr. Joseph Y. Jeans, of Philadelphia. 

Letitia Street House 239 

From a photograph of the house now in Fairmount Park, 
Philadelphia. 

West's Picture of the Great Treaty 243 

From a photograph of the original painting in Indepen- 
dence Hall, Philadelphia. It was painted by West, in 1773, 
at the request of the Penn family, and purchased from Gran- 
ville John Penn in 1851 by Mr. Joseph Harrison, of Phila- 
delphia. 

Supposed Wampum Belt of the Great Treaty . 246 

From a photograph of the belt now in the Historical Society 
of Pennsylvania. The belt was given to the Society in 1857 
by a member of the Penn family, among whom it was tradi- 
tionally believed to have been given to Penn by the Indians 
at the time of the Great Treaty. 

James II., Duke of York 254 

From a photograph of an engraving in the Historical 
Society of Pennsylvania. 

William III 304 

From a photograph of an engraving in the Historical 
Society of Pennsylvania. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS WITH NOTES 
Hannah Callowhill, Penn's Second Wife . . . 339 

From a photograph of the copy of the painting by Place, 
in Indejiendence Hall, Philadelphia. Permission to photo- 
graph the original in England could not be obtained. 

Penn's Son Thomas 340 

From a photograph of the engraving by Martin, in the His- 
torical Society of Pennsylvania. 

Pennsylvania Castle 341 

From a photograph of the painting in the Historical Society 
of Pennsylvania. The castle was built about 1815, by John 
Penn, son of Thomas, and grandson of William Penn. In 
1887 it passed from the Penn family into the possession of 
its present owner, J. Merrick Head, Esq. 

James Logan 349 

From a photograph of the painting formerly at Stenton, and 
now in the possession of Mr. A. C. Logan, of Philadelphia. 

The Slate-Roof House 351 

From a photograph of the engraving in the Historical 
Society of Pennsylvania. 

Penn's Bible, with Book-Plate 375 

From a photograph of the Bible in the Historical Society 
of Pennsylvania. The motto on the book-plate, " Dum 
Clavum Teneam," is an abbreviated form of the motto, 
" Dum Clavum Rectum Teneam," which means, " If I 
hold a steady helm," or, freely, " If I am not negligent." 

Penn's Writing-Desk 379 

From a photograph of the desk in the Philadelphia Library. 

Penn's Burial-Place. Jordan's Meeting-House . . 384 

From a photograph taken by Mr. Julius F. Sachse. Jordan's 
Meeting-House is in Buckinghamshire, west of London. 



The True 
William Penn 



William Penn is now usually thought of as a 
pious, contemplative man, a peace-loving Quaker in 
a broad brim hat and plain drab clothes, who 
founded Pennsylvania in the most successful manner, 
on beautiful, benevolent principles, and kindness to 
the Indians. 

But the real Penn, though of a very religious turn 
of mind, was essentially a man of action, restless 
and enterprising, at times a courtier and a politician, 
who loved handsome dress, lived well and lavishly, 
and, although he undoubtedly kept his faith with 
the red-men, Pennsylvania was the torment of his 
life. He came, moreover, of fighting ancestry, and 
was himself a soldier for a short time. His life was 
full of contests, imprisonments, disasters, and suffer- 
ing, if not of actual fighting, and he lived during 
the most critical periods of English history. Few, 
if any, Quakers have shown so much energy as he. 
Indeed, there have been few men who have at- 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

tempted to accomplish so much. With what success 
we shall see. 

The portraits which we have of him are unfor- 
tunately veiy unsatisfactory sources from which to 
learn his personal appearance. Some of them are 
entirely imaginary, and the others are either of 
doubtful authenticity or made from recollection. 
There is, in fact, no portrait of Penn which is posi- 
tively known to have been painted from life. 

The picture of him most familiar to Americans is 
an engraving by Schoff made from a painting in the 
Pennsylvania Historical Society, which represents 
him as a young cavalier in armor at the age, as is sup- 
posed, of twenty-two. There is also a smaller en- 
graving by Armstrong less well known, but taken 
from the same painting with the assistance of a pho- 
tograph * of a similar painting in England. The 
engravings are substantially alike, but by no means 
faithful copies of the painting from which they are 
taken, or of the photograph of the painting in Eng- 
land. They are, however, very beautiful pictures, 
idealizing the qualities of the painting and represent- 
ing Penn as most heroic and attractive. 

He is already a good deal idealized in the painting 
from which they are taken, and appears as a fresh- 
faced, rosy-lipped, but very serious- minded, English 
youth, clad in armor, his hair parted in the middle, 
and the long cavalier locks reaching to his shoulders. 
A handsome piece of lace is wound several times 



* This photograph is now in the collection of Hon. James T. 
Mitchell, of Philadelphia. 




TRAIT OF PENN IN THE PENNSYI.VANiy 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



THE MAN 

round his neck, and the ends, gathered in a bunch 
at the throat, rest on the polished breast-plate. 

The face and eyes look straight at you with intense 
and almost startling earnestness. There is no sense 
of humor in the features, or even youthful gayety. 
At first sight you might say that the face was melan- 
choly ; but close inspection leads you to describe it 
as over-serious, too earnest for the time of life. 

There is great determination expressed in it, — that 
sort of wild determination which, when combined 
with a lack of education, makes what is called the 
fanatic. But, at the same time, every line in the 
portrait shows that the young man is of cultured and 
good associations, and belongs to the best class of 
his time. The eyes are very large, and it is in them 
that this wild determination principally resides ; and, 
at the same time, they have an appealing, soft, lus- 
trous look. Gentle, sympathetic, and ideal qualities 
are evidently combined in a tumultuous way with 
some sort of an heroic soul. It is precisely the sort 
of picture one would paint after a careful study of 
Penn's life. There is no trace of shrewdness, subtle 
tact, or deep sagacity, which in the previous volume 
of this series we found to be so characteristic of 
Franklin's face. 

We can easily imagine that Penn might have 
looked like this. We know that he was very reli- 
gious ; and the face of this portrait is not the hard, 
cunning face of the ecclesiastic, nor the sour face 
of the Puritan. It belongs to another type of that 
strangely religious age, the type of the smaller sects, 
who were more radical than either Puritan or Church- 
13 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

man, who were not plotting for political control, who 
took their mystical religion to heart with simple, 
unworldly, reckless earnestness, and went with it to 
the prison or to the stake. 

Whatever decision may be reached as to the 
authenticity of these armor portraits, they will al- 
ways be valued by Penn's admirers as idealizations 
of his qualities. It is, indeed, hard to resist the 
fascination of pictures which take all the heroic and 
intellectual qualities of the mature man and depict 
them in his boyish face, as foreshadowing what he 
was to be. 

The armor portrait in the possession of the Penn- 
sylvania Historical Society, was given by Granville 
Penn in 1833, and is described in the Society's 
Catalogue of Paintings as " entirely authentic." It 
was for a long time believed by the uninitiated to 
be an original, and the statement usually made was 
that the family had had two of these portraits, both 
painted from life and by the same artist, and had 
retained one of them after giving the other to the 
Historical Society. But recently, in cleaning the 
one belonging to the Historical Society, it was 
found to be of very modern date, and seems to have 
been painted within the first half of the nineteenth 
century. 

It might be supposed that the one remaining in 
England in the possession of Major William Dugald 
Stuart might have been taken from life ; but now it 
appears that there is another of these armor por- 
traits in the possession of J. Merrick Head, Esq., of 
Pennsylvania Castle, Dorset. Both are claimed by 
14 




THE I'l-ACK PUK I 



THE MAN 

their owners to be originals. But connoisseurs have 
grave doubts of their authenticity because httle or 
nothing is known of their history, and it is not even 
known by whom they were painted. They are not 
in the least like the Bevan carving of Penn, the only 
likeness of him which is at all well authenticated. 

A portrait purporting to be a likeness of Penn at 
the age of fifty-two, painted by Francis Place, was, 
about the year 1874, found to be in the possession 
of Mr. Allan, of Blackwell Hall, County Durham, 
England. Place was an amateur artist, contempo- 
rary with Penn, and might have had opportunity to 
paint a portrait of him from life. It should be said, 
however, that Quakers were very averse to sitting 
for their portraits, because it savored of vanity and 
injured their standing among those whose good 
opinion was of value. But still Place might have 
seen Penn at various times and painted him from 
recollection.* 

Those who accept this Place portrait as anything 
of a likeness can the more easily believe in the 
armor portraits. The face is very much the same in 
each ; in each we find the same rather staring, anx- 
ious eyes ; and it is possible to imagine that the 
Place portrait is the man grown much older, stouter, 
and with the look of uncertain energy changed into 
one of more settled and steady determination. 

The Place portrait has also some of that same 
over-seriousness which is so noticeable in the armor 



*Scribner's Magazine, vol. xii. p. 6; Pennsylvania Historical 
Society, Catalogue of Paintings, p. 27. 
15 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

portrait, and also in the portrait of Penn's father, 
the admiral. In fact, the resemblance is so close 
that those who have carefully studied the subject are 
disposed to think, and with good reason, that the 
Place portrait is a likeness of the admiral and not 
of his son.* The decisive point, however, is that 
this Place portrait is totally unlike the Bevan carv- 
ing, which I shall now describe. 

When Lord Cobham was adorning his gardens at 
Stowe with statuary towards the middle of the 
eighteenth century, some years after the death of 
Penn, he sought for a portrait of Penn to be copied, 
but could not fine one. A certain Sylvan us Bevan, 
a Quaker apothecary in London, skilful in amateur 
carving, hearing of this, made a little ivory bust of 
Penn as he recollected him and sent it to Lord 
Cobham without explanation. His lordship, it is 
said, on receiving it, exclaimed, "Whence came 
this? It is William Penn himself;" and he had a 
statue made from it for his gardens. 

This tale, if true, is somewhat against the validity 
of the armor and Place portraits, for Lord Cobham, 
after inquiry only a few years after Penn's death, 
was, it is said, unable to hear of any portrait of him. 
It should also be noted that Clarkson, who pub- 
lished his memoirs of Penn in 1814 and was very 
diligent in collecting traditions of him, says that 
there was no portrait of him painted from life. He 
relies entirely on the Bevan carving. f 



* Jenkins's Family of William Penn, p. 28. 

f Clarkson's Memoirs of Penn, vol. ii. p. 260. 

16 




K ilAl.I, KNtJKAVlNt; OK TMK KKVAN CAkVIN(; 



THE MAN 

The Bevan bust, or carving, though small, is said 
to have been a good likeness. Robert Proud, the 
Quaker historian of Pennsylvania, who was in Eng- 
land in 1750 and stayed with Bevan, reports of it : 

•' The likeness is a real and true one, as I have been informed, not 
only by himself (S. B.), but also by other old men in England of 
the first character in the Society of Friends, who knew him in their 
youth." (Watson's Annals, edition of 1 844, p. III.)* 

Bevan is said to have made three of these ivory 
carvings of Penn. He sent one of them to Penn- 
sylvania, to James Logan, and it found its way with 
the Loganian Library to the Philadelphia Library, 
where it was, unfortunately, burnt in a slight fire 
which occurred there in 183 1. I have been unable 
to find any one who recollects its appearance or 
who has ever heard it described. Until the armor 
portrait was brought to this country, the Bevan 
carving and engravings of it were all that people 
had to rely upon who wished to know what Penn 
looked like. 

An excellent engraving of the Philadelphia Bevan 
carving was made by John Hall in 1773. But 
fortunately we do not have to rely exclusively on 
this engraving. One of the two other carvings that 
Bevan made is still in existence in England, and I 



* Mr. Charles Henry Hart has called my attention to another proof 
that the Bevan carving is probably a correct likeness. In the Ameri- 
can Universal Magazine (or ]&nua.ry 2, 1797, there is an engraving by 
Smithers of the Bevan carving taken from a drawing by Du Simitidre, 
and under it is printed, " esteemed by Richard Penn a good like- 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

have been so fortunate as to obtain a photograph of 
it.* There is no essential difference between the 
photograph and the engraving ; and after an exam- 
ination of them it is impossible to resist the con- 
clusion that they represent a man totally different 
from the one we see in the armor portraits or in the 
Place portrait. The Bevan portrait has a very 
pointed nose, which is not found in the others, and 
the whole expression of the face is different. 

The armor portraits and the Place portrait show 
a very anxious, serious face. In a sense this might 
be natural, because we know that Penn had many 
troubles and anxieties. But, on the other hand, the 
serene, cheerful face of the Bevan portrait conforms 
to the tradition and the assertions of his biographers 
that he took all his difficulties, his imprisonments, 
and his loss of fortune very lightly, and was fully 
sustained in his worst trials by his sanguine and 
courageous temperament. If the Bevan portrait 
is anything of a correct likeness, and I believe it is, 
it is impossible to believe in the other pictures. 

There is a picture described by Mr. Juhus F. 
Sachse in his "German Pietists in America," painted 
by a Dutch artist, Egbert Hemskirck, representing 
a Quaker meeting, in which one of the figures is sup- 
posed to be Penn. Hemskirck was a contemporary 
of Penn, and his picture represents a meeting of 
Quakers in Benjamin Furly's house in Rotterdam. 

* It is in the possession of Alfred Waterhouse, Esq., R.A., Yatten- 
don Court, Berkshire. I may add that the Pennsylvania Historical 
Society has a copy in marble of the Bevan carving that was in Phila- 
delphia. 

i8 



THE MAN 

The figure on the extreme right is supposed to be 
George Fox ; the one next to him, with his right foot 
resting on the bench, is Penn. Both Fox and Penn, 
it will be observed, are in English dress, and the rest 
of the people appear to be Dutch. 

It would seem at first sight as if the picture was 
intended to be somewhat in ridicule of the Quakers, 
for most of the people are given rather ill-looking 
faces except Furly, who is on the left leaning on the 
gallery with his hat off But it probably represents 
an ordinary Quaker meeting of the time, as the artist 
had seen them. Furly was a rich man and the 
patron and protector of the Quakers in Holland. 
He was a close friend of Penn, and Penn and Fox 
are known to have held meetings with him in the 
year 1677. It will be observed that the Dutch 
artist's representation of Penn gives him the pointed 
nose which we find in the Bevan carving. He looks 
like the active, busy, energetic man of affairs he 
was ; but there is nothing religious about the face. 
It is, however, very life-Hke and interesting, and I 
am inclined to have some confidence in it 

There is a German engraving of Penn by Kuhner, 
often reproduced, and purporting to be taken from 
a portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was a well- 
known court painter in Penn's time. But nothing is 
known of the original picture which this engraving 
professes to reproduce, and it is generally believed 
to be a copy of the Bevan carving, which it closely 
resembles. 

Still another portrait of Penn has recently come to 
light and is now owned in America. It is believed 
19 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

to be by Jonathan Richardson, who was a well- 
known artist and a contemporary of Penn. It has 
the pointed nose and double chin of the Bevan 
carving, and cannot, therefore, be rejected by the 
critics. It is well painted, animated, and the green 
coat and careful details make it an exceedingly in- 
teresting picture. 

There are rumors that there was at one time a 
portrait of Penn by Sir Peter Lely, who painted the 
likeness of Penn's father, but the picture itself has 
not yet been discovered. 

Benjamin West's picture of the famous treaty 
with the Indians gives us a representation of Penn, 
but it is purely imaginary. The large, full-length 
portrait painted by Inman for the Penn Society, and 
now in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, merely fol- 
lows West's representation, and as it is also purely 
imaginary and adds nothing to our knowledge of 
Penn's real appearance, it has not been reproduced 
for this book. For the same reason the old lead 
statue in front of the Pennsylvania Hospital has been 
omitted. 

The large bronze statue which was cast some years 
ago for the tower of the City Hall, in Philadelphia, 
represents Penn as tall, vigorous, and handsome, as 
he is supposed to have been when he was about forty 
years old and first took possession of Pennsylvania. 
This statue, though by no means what was desired 
and expected, was modelled after careful consulta- 
tion with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and 
particular attention was given to the dress. It is the 
cavalier costume of the period, with the sword, the 



THE MAN 

feather in the hat, and the silver trimmings on the 
coat omitted. This is beheved to have been Penn's 
dress for a long time after he became a Quaker. 
He even for a time, it is said, wore his sword. He 
was rather fond of good clothes. He altered the 
dress which marked his class and station in life only 
by making it somewhat plainer than that of the gay 
cavalier. 

This seems to have been the practice of all the 
early Quakers. They did not adopt a distinctive 
dress, but made the one they were accustomed 
to plainer. The broad-brim hat and straight-cut 
coat were not the original Quaker costume. It was 
the shifting and changing of fashions, and exces- 
sive ornamentation, that they particularly disliked. 
Many of them, especially in Pennsylvania in colonial 
times, while adhering to one fashion, wore clothes 
of the most handsome and expensive materials. The 
sculptor, however, took liberties with the instruc- 
tions of the Historical Society, and has probably 
represented Penn less plain than he really was, and 
in a way that does not add to the dignity of the 
statue. 

The more we investigate Penn's personal appear- 
ance the more confusing we find the accounts of it. 
Not only do we find his portraits contradictory, but 
we find some writers describing him as a tall man, 
others as above the medium height, and others as a 
short man. In Watson's "Annals of Pennsylvania" 
the recollections are given of an old woman who 
professed to have seen him when he visited his 
province. 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

" She described him as of rather short stature, but the handsomest, 
best-looking, lively gentleman she had ever seen. There was nothing 
like pride about him ; but affable and friendly with the humblest in 
life." (Vol. i. p. 55.) 

Clarkson, relying, I presume, on traditions gath- 
ered among the EngHsh Quakers, describes him as 
a tall man ; and I am inclined to think this is cor- 
rect. Hemskirck's painting of the Quaker meeting 
represents him as rather tall, and Hemskirck would 
be apt to give his figure correctly. He might be 
inaccurate in his recollections of Penn's face, but 
he could easily remember whether he was tall or 
short. 

Penn was a man of education, and, indeed, quite 
learned. He knew something of Latin, and corre- 
sponded in that tongue with Sewell the Quaker his- 
torian. He also studied Greek, as a matter of course, 
like any Oxford man, and he seems to have known 
French, German, and Dutch well enough to read 
and speak in them. He read widely on theology, 
government, and all the topics of his time, as is 
abundantly shown in his writings. But the most 
striking proof of his wide reading is to be found in 
some of his essays or pamphlets, to which he has 
added quotations and citations of all the ancient 
and modern authors that he could find in support 
of his theses. In his "Treatise of Oaths," there are 
over fifty instances in which he either quotes the 
words or states the opinion of some Greek or Roman 
philosopher or statesman, or of some saint or father 
of the church. In the second part of " No Cross, 
No Crown," there are over one hundred and thirty 




I'KNN AND FOX 



THE MAN 

of these instances, and they range from the most 
remote antiquity through the days of Greece and 
Rome, and the distinguished men of the Middle 
Ages, down to the men of his own day in England. 
The labor of hunting for these in the libraries of the 
time must have been very great, and he could not 
have collected such masses for the particular occa- 
sions on which he used them, unless he was already 
somewhat acquainted with them in a general way. 

It is easy to see in his life and character that he 
was inspired by this labor. He loved great and 
noble thoughts, grand ideas of world-wide improve- 
ment and reform. This passion led him to read the 
lives of all who had been remarkable, and their soul- 
stirring words, the enthusiasm of their success, or the 
heroism of failure or defeat, stimulated to still loftier 
heights the passion that had led him to this study. 

He was evidently one of those who study history 
largely through biographies ; and if one wishes to 
be aroused and inspired, that is certainly the best 
method to pursue. From his natural bent, and these 
studies, he had filled his mind with all the most pro- 
gressive and philanthropic ideas that had been sug- 
gested in the whole course of written human history. 
He knew all the distinguished men in England of 
his day ; and many of them he knew very intimately. 
He travelled, both in England and in foreign countries, 
more than most people of that time. He was born 
and educated among the aristocracy, and always as- 
sociated with them freely ; and, as a Quaker, he 
became very intimate with the middle and lower 
classes. 

23 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

He was certainly in a way to be a man of enlarged 
mind ; and, in truth, he was too much so. His 
liberality was developed at the expense, as we shall 
see, of many practical qualities. Although he had 
read so many biographies, he was not a shrewd 
judge of the characters by whom he was sur- 
rounded in actual life. He could arouse people into 
enthusiasm for his great ideas, but he had not a 
corresponding power for carrying those ideas into 
practical effect. When living in his colony he man- 
aged it well, and when away from it he managed it 
very badly ; and he was a careless man of business. 
He planned everything on a vast scale, with an 
attempt to look far into the future. He was so far 
in advance of his time in everything that he con- 
stantly suffered defeats, which a shrewder man, like 
Franklin, for example, would have avoided by being 
more moderate. He knew that he was much ahead 
of his age, but he would not be otherwise ; and, 
indeed, there is much to be said in favor of setting 
a high and absolute standard and holding to it 
heroically. 

It was a great misfortune to him that in his re- 
ligious and political writings he lacked the power of 
lucid and concise expression. He was a rather vo- 
luminous writer ; but in politics and theology a very 
dull one. When he had a good thought, he usually 
suffocated it in an inextricable tangle of words and 
parentheses. His writings could be made excellent 
object-lessons to show how not to use the parenthesis. 
When he sat down to write one of his essays, he 
seems to have tried to make it as long as possible, 
24 



THE MAN 

to use as many words as possible, and to interpo- 
late all manner of irrelevant things so as to pre- 
vent his phrases from having any point or snap. It 
is a dreaiy business to dig out his opinions after 
having written a life of the vivid, sparkling, pointed 
Franklin. 

He never trained himself in conciseness as Frank- 
lin did. In fact, he did not train himself at all in 
writing. He would probably have despised anything 
of that kind as over-nice and too particular. "To 
be nice," he says, in his maxims, *' is not only a 
troublesome, but a slavish thing." The bent of his 
mind was altogether away from the minute details 
which produce excellence of this sort. He was all 
for great ideas and generalities. 

Sometimes when circumstances compelled him to 
be concise, his style greatly improved, and he said 
things which are of permanent value for the way in 
which they are put. In drafting the documents for 
the government of Pennsylvania, he had to be brief, 
and several of his statements of principles are still 
often quoted and admired for their aptness. 

"There is hardly one frame of government in the world so ill de- 
signed by its founders, that in good hands would not do well enough. " 

" Any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the 
frame) where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws." 

His famous letter to his wife and children on his 
departure for Pennsylvania, and his description of 
that province sent to the Free Society of Traders, 
are also remarkably free from his usual faults, and 
written in very mellow, pretty language. Some of 
his more important correspondence is also written in 

25 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

this same happy manner. His biographer, Stough- 
ton, thinks that, if Penn had cared to, he could 
always have written in this vein, but that in most 
of his writings he thought it necessary to adopt the 
canting language which had become habitual and 
sacred among the Quakers. 

When he was nearly fifty years old, and obliged 
to conceal himself after the Revolution of 1688, he 
wrote an essay called " Some Fruits of Solitude," 
containing five hundred and fifty-six " maxims and 
reflections," the result of his experience of life, and 
contemplation of it in retirement. Afterwards, he 
wrote another essay called " More Fruits of Soli- 
tude," and this contains two hundred and ninety- 
nine maxims. It is curious to observe that when 
he confines a maxim to ten or a dozen words, it 
often has some point. But he could not always 
restrain himself Many of the maxims are enlarged 
into good-sized paragraphs, and have to be read 
twice to see their meaning. 

I can assure the reader that it is a real penance to 
read through these eight hundred and fifty maxims. 
I have performed that task and gathered the dozen 
or so grains of wheat out of the ton of — I was 
about to say chaflT; but I can hardly apply that 
word to so much sound morality and spiritual senti- 
ment merely because it has the misfortune to be 
cumbersomely expressed. We can, at least, say 
that those who complain of Franklin's maxims as 
too shrewd and worldly, too thrifty and money- 
getting, will not be able to make that complaint of 
Penn's. The tone of all that Penn says is excellent 
26 



THE MAN 

and elevating. We shall grow rich under his advice 
only in generosity, magnanimity, liberty, and human 
kindness. 

" They have a right to censure that have a heart to help." 
"Never marry but for love; but see that thou lov'st what is 

lovely." 

" There can be no friendship where there is no freedom." 
"Some men do as much begrudge others a good name as they 

want one themselves ; and perhaps that is the reason of it." 

" Nor can we fall below the arms of God, how low soever it be 

we fall." 

Some of his maxims on education are interesting 
because so far in advance of his time, and because 
they embody the same ideas which Franklin after- 
wards amplified and sought to establish in the Col- 
lege of Philadelphia. 

" We are in pain to make them scholars, but not men ! To talk, 
rather than to know ; which is true canting." 

" The first thing obvious to children is what is sensible ; and that 
we make no part of their rudiments." 

"We press their memory too soon, and puzzle, strain, and load 
them with words and rules ; to know grammar and rhetoric, and a 
strange tongue or two, that it is ten to one may never be useful to 
them ; leaving their natural genius to mechanical and physical or 
natural knowledge uncultivated and neglected ; which would be of 
exceeding use and pleasure to them through the whole course of 
their life." 

" To be sure, languages are not to be despised or neglected. But 
things are still to be preferred." 

"Children had rather be making of tools and instruments of 
play, shaping, drawing, framing, and building, &c., than getting 
some rules of propriety of speech by heart. And those also would 
follow with more judgment, and less trouble and time." 

For one of his maxims he certainly deserves 
credit, and the maxim deserves a wide circulation. 
27 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

"To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics 
as well as morals." 

His description of the wise man is also rather 
good. 

"The wise man is cautious, but not cunning; judicious but not 
crafty ; making virtue the measure of using his excellent under- 
standing in the conduct of his life." 

"The wise man is equal, ready, but not officious." 

His maxim, "The less form in religion the better, 
since God is a spirit," is a very complete though 
brief summary of his religion and the religion of the 
Quakers. In his letter to William Popple, he, with- 
out perhaps intending it, made an excellent maxim. 

" We can never be the better for our religion if our neighbor be 
the worse for it." 

There is only one of his maxims that savors at all 
of the keen shrewdness of Franklin's. It, perhaps, 
can be applied to our own times. 

" Let the people think they govern and they will be governed." 

According to Bishop Burnet, Penn's conversation 
was even more wordy and cumbersome than his 
political writings. 

" He was a vain talking man. He had such an opinion of his own 
faculty of persuading, that he thought none could stand before it, 
though he was singular in that opinion ; for he had a tedious, luscious 
way of talking not apt to overcome a man's reason, though it might 
tire his patience." 

There may be some truth in this statement. Penn 
was an enthusiast, and when talking on his favorite 
themes he very likely heaped up the words and bore 
28 



THE MAN 

down opposition by energy and long-windedness. 
He was " luscious," or nauseatingly eloquent, as the 
word may be translated, from excessive zeal in his 
subject. Burnet himself was also afflicted in that 
way. 

But other and less prejudiced persons than Burnet 
found great pleasure in Penn's conversation, and there 
is every reason to believe that it was by no means so 
dull as his writing. Swift, who was surely a judge 
of such things, said he " talked very agreeably and 
with much spirit." Tillotson found great pleasure 
in his acquaintance ; Clarkson calls attention to the 
Gentleman s Magazine of April, 1737, where some 
one who had travelled with Penn in a stage-coach, 
says, "And a pleasant companion he was." The 
tradition among the Quakers in England seems to 
have been that he was rather animated in conversa- 
tion and disposed to be facetious ; and some of the 
traditions and anecdotes preserved in Pennsylvania 
are also to that effect. He certainly had seen a 
great deal of the world, and this, with his wide 
reading and genial temperament, must have made 
his conversation very agreeable when he was not 
carried away by zeal for his unusual opinions. His 
usual manner, I am inclined to think from various 
incidents I have read, was one of bluff heartiness. 

It would seem that, until he became a rather old 
man, Penn was very free from disease. But the de- 
tails we have of his life are not complete, and he 
might have had illnesses which have not been re- 
corded. He had a vigorous constitution, and, with- 
out it, could hardly have endured, without serious 
29 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

injury, the frequent imprisonments in pestilential 
dungeons which he suffered in his youth. 

For the rest of his hfe we find him very actively 
engaged in the varied business of a leader and or- 
ganizer of the Quakers, a defender of them from 
persecution, a politician, a courtier, a founder of a 
colony, and suffering great losses of fortune and 
severe anxiety. He was of a sanguine tempera- 
ment, and this disposition may have contributed to 
his health. As he grew older he had the gout ; but 
it seems he was careful to take systematic exercise, 
and the disease never seized him with any great 
severity. 



II 

THE TIMES 

Penn was born October 14, 1644, and, as we read 
English history, that seems a troublous time for a 
child to come into the world, especially a child that 
was to be a man of peace. England was full of 
religious and political confusion. The great ideas 
of government and religion by which we have been 
living for two hundred years were then struggling 
for existence in their primitive form, and for the 
next fifty years were tossed about in the wild tumult 
of wars, revolution, and religious persecution. 

There were two great political parties, the Roy- 
alists and the Roundheads, and several great re- 
ligious parties, the Church of England, the various 
divisions of the Puritans, and the Roman Catholics, 
besides numerous fanatical small sects which were 
fiercely in earnest to establish their principles of 
politics or religion. At that time the discussion of 
such principles was not confined to argument. Each 
party and each religion was prepared for force, to 
inflict or to suffer martyrdom, to fight or to die in 
their cause. 

For nearly half a century the king had been 
struggling hard to build up the power and privi- 
leges of the crown against Parliament and the people. 
3> 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

James I. had been very diligent in this, and tyranny 
was gaining in spite of the frantic and spasmodic 
struggles of the people against it. Tyranny was 
growing because England was growing. As the 
island became more and more civilized and began 
to take a place among the nations, organization be- 
came more and more necessary. Regular methodi- 
cal government must succeed the easy, noble, and 
manly freedom which was instinctive with the de- 
scendants of the Vikings, Angles, and Saxons. The 
followers of the king and all who admired absolute 
monarchy or loved place and power took advantage 
of this necessity to develop royalty and a church es- 
tablished by law, and for a long time they were very 
successful. 

Other things, however, were growing besides the 
royal power and the Church of England. The great 
movement of the Reformation, starting in the inven- 
tion of printing and the revival of learning, was still 
stimulating independent thought, arousing and en- 
couraging more and more the Puritan sects, and 
leading them to see their interest in developing the 
ancient Anglo-Saxon liberties, as the Royalists saw 
their interest in developing the kingly power. 

Strange creatures were those Puritans and other 
sects who had only recently broken through the re- 
straints of the Middle Ages and begun to think for 
themselves. From the system of the Middle Ages, 
which ignored the Bible altogether, they had rushed 
to the opposite extreme of accepting it so literally 
that they gave their children the strange un-English 
names they found in the Old Testament. From the 
32 



THE TIMES 

Church of Rome, which governed as an absolute 
monarchy and governed too much, the Presbyte- 
rians had reacted to a system of representative or 
repubhcan church government made up of elective 
assemblies and synods, while others, the Inde- 
pendents and Congregationalists, had reacted to the 
principle that there should be .no general church 
government at all, and each congregation should be 
a law unto itself in doctrine and discipline. From 
the excesses of image worship and ritual they had 
gone to the extreme of abolishing all ritual, vest- 
ments, and images, adopting extemporaneous prayer 
instead of prayers read from a book, and preaching 
to a congregation that sat within four bare walls. 

They were austere in their manners ; they dis- 
ciplined themselves into a hatred of all amusements 
and pleasures. They saw the terrible side of re- 
ligion ; they convinced themselves of original sin, 
with which every man was born, and for which the 
vast majority of mankind would be burnt forever in 
hell by a wrathful God who, to gratify his rage and 
pleasure, had foreordained them to their fate, in 
spite of the good deeds and works they might do 
on earth. 

They encouraged all feelings that were gloomy 
and sombre, which were, they thought, alone com- 
patible with religion. They relied on inward expe- 
riences and feelings of conversion to supply the place 
of the dogmas and forms they had rejected. They 
trained their faces to conform to their feelings, as- 
sumed sour, malignant expressions, whined, groaned,* 
and drawled in their speech. 
3 33 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

They were accompanied by smaller sects, with 
minds still more distorted by the new-found liberty 
of the age, — fifth monarchy men, who believed that 
Christ was about to come to establish an earthly 
kingdom for a thousand years. Desperate, danger- 
ous fellows they were ; for when the rage of their 
belief was on them and they thought the kingdom 
about to come, they would fight like devils, attacking 
the militia and soldiery with the utmost fury and 
refusing quarter. 

Pepys describes how thirty-one of them, shouting, 
"The King Jesus and the heads upon the gates!" 
put all London in terror, routed the trainbands, put 
the king's lifeguard to the run, broke through the 
city gates, killed twenty men, and led every one to 
believe that they numbered five hundred, while 
every householder armed himself, and forty thousand 
stood ready to oppose these fierce fanatics.* 

Then there were strange antinomian and familistic 
sects, who found their liberty in dropping the original 
sin and gloom of the Puritans and believing that there 
was scarcely any sin at all, and that love and con- 
templation were religion. Of these we shall have 
more to say hereafter, for they, together with the 
Puritans, created a phase of religious thought which 
had great influence on William Penn, and, indeed, 
accounts for half his character. The Quakers also 
were coming into prominence at that time, and they 
Avere a very peculiar and important sect, of whom we 
shall have a great deal to say. 



* Pepys's Diary, ed. 1S93, vol. 
34 



THE TIMES 

In striking contrast to these strange sects were the 
Royalists, who stood by the king and the Church of 
England, with its moderate ceremonies and ritual 
and its moderate adoption of the ideas of the Refor- 
mation. Pleasure-loving and gay, devoted to sports 
and amusements, dressing fantastically, as it would 
now seem, in bright colors, with long hair and 
pointed beards, and all the more devoted to pleas- 
ures, theatres, oaths, ribaldry, and licentiousness, 
because these things were under the ban of Puri- 
tanism. 

A long and terrible conflict was inevitable be- 
tween these elements. How to combine the ancient 
freedom with the necessities of highly-organized gov- 
ernment and have both liberty and government at 
the same time was the problem by whose solution 
England was to be torn and distracted for the rest 
of the century. During that time, which in effect 
covers the life of William Penn, "freedom," as Ten- 
nyson has expressed it, "broadened slowly down from 
precedent to precedent." Slowly hardly describes 
this movement. It was veiy slow ; often stagnation 
and sometimes retrogression ; and Penn's relation 
to this movement, which is still a movement, is the 
most important part of his life's history. 

Charles I., who succeeded James I. in 1625, car- 
ried the royal power to still greater heights. He 
levied taxes and imposts as he pleased without au- 
thority of law, and governed for many years without 
any Parliament at all. In fact, he completely eclipsed 
and for the time being destroyed the ancient liberties 
and brought royalty to its climax and acme of power, 
35 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

In the same way, reacting against the whole spirit 
of the Reformation, he built up the Established 
Church. He appointed Laud Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, and it is needless to tell again how Laud 
became the terror and detestation of Puritans, filling 
the churches with images, elaborating ceremonies, 
and inflicting degrading punishment on the clergy 
who inclined to Puritan ways. They were impris- 
oned, whipped, had their ears cut off, their noses 
slit, and their cheeks branded with hot irons. We 
have all heard the story of the Puritan Pryne, who 
was stood in the pillory, lost both his ears, and was 
imprisoned for life, because he wrote condemning 
the balls, theatres, and other amusements of the 
court. 

It was in those days that John Hampden sturdily 
refused to pay the ship-money, which was an old 
form of tax by which the seaports had supplied the 
king with war-vessels. Charles attempted to com- 
pel the inland towns to contribute, and Hampden 
resisted, although the suit against him was for only 
twenty shillings. Penn, as we shall see, in later 
years made a similar stand for trial by jury. 

We have all read how the reaction by Charles I. 
against the Reformation brought on a counter-reac- 
tion from the Reformation itself ; for while despotism 
grew among the Royalists at court, wild republican- 
ism spread among the people. Charles I. tried to 
force the Church of England's ritual and ceremonies, 
upon the Presbyterian Scotch, and when they rose 
in rebellion and mobbed the bishops he called a 
Parliament together to grant him an army with 
36 



THE TIMES 

which to suppress them. There had been no Par- 
Hament for eleven years ; and this new one was filled 
with men of the Cromwell and Hampden order. 
They impeached and executed Laud and Stafford. 
They abolished the ecclesiastical courts which had 
been punishing the Puritans. They seized violently 
on all the rights they had so long declared they pos- 
sessed. They completely reversed the condition of 
affairs, and instead of the king ruling without a Par- 
liament, Parliament ruled without the king. He was 
driven from London, established himself at York, 
and declared war against his Parliament. 

In this way began the great civil war in 1642, and 
when Penn was born, in October, 1644, four famous 
battles had been fought, — Edge Hill, Newbury, 
Nantwich, and Marston Moor. The Puritan cannon 
had battered down many an ancient castle of the no- 
bility. The king's cause was lost, and the success- 
ful Puritan and parliamentary soldiers, with their 
extraordinary biblical names, — Praise God Bare- 
bones and Sergeant Hew Agag in Pieces before the 
Lord, — were roaming through the country, smashing 
the images in the churches, tearing out the pipes in 
the organs, breaking the stained-glass windows, and 
stabling their horses in cathedrals. 

But although civil war rages in a country the or- 
dinary affairs of life go on. The children play hide- 
and-seek and lovers kiss their sweethearts as in the 
piping times of peace. We must not let the general 
statements and perspective of history deceive us, and 
we are assured that there was still some quiet life left 
in England when wc read of that country gentleman 
37 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

who, on the morning of the battle of Edge Hill, was 
unconcernedly strolling with his dogs between the 
two armies. What concern had the war with him 
whose life as lord of his lands was self-contained and 
complete ? 

So Penn, we may infer, was born as peacefully as 
children usually are in a house where his father and 
mother had lodgings, and which stood in London in 
a little court close to the Tower and adjoining what 
was called London Wall. His father had gone to 
sea, and soon the mother and her son left London 
and went to live in the pretty village of Wanstead, 
near Essex, and there Penn passed his boyhood and 
went to school. 



Ill 

ADMIRAL PENN 

Of Penn's mother very little is known, except 
that she was a Dutch woman, the daughter of John 
Jasper, a merchant of Rotterdam. Her son has left 
us no description of her. There is no portrait, no 
anecdotes or sayings, nothing that would reveal her 
character ; and very likely she was a plain, mediocre 
person ; for if she had been otherwise, something 
more definite about her would have come down 
to us. 

Penn showed few if any Dutch traits. We might 
expect that his mother would have given him some 
of the thrifty, economical qualities of her nation. 
But he was just the reverse, a lavish spender of 
money rather than a saver, and a very poor business 
man, so far as regards details and management. 
His ideas of such subjects were grand, general, and 
sweeping like an Englishman's, in advance of his 
time and greater than his ability could accomplish. 
It might be said that his very earnest and advanced 
opinions on the subject of religious liberty were 
Dutch ; but he might have gained such opinions 
from the Quakers, who supported them more ar- 
dently than any other sect. 

Pepys describes in his diary, in his amusing way, 
39 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

his first meeting Lady Penn in August, 1664, and 
her appearance. 

" At noon dined at home and after dinner my wife and I to Sir W 
Pen's to see his lady, the first time, who is a well looked, fat short 
old Dutch woman, but one that hath been heretofore pretty handsome, 
and is now very discreet and I believe hath more wit than her hus- 
band. Here we stayed talking a good while and very well pleased 
I was with the old woman at first visit." (Vol. iv. p. 207.) 

In another passage he describes Lady Penn and 
some of the manners of the times when people 
visited one another in their bedrooms. 

" So home vexed and going to my Lady Batten's there found a 
great many women with her in her chamber merry, my Lady Pen 
and her daughter, among others ; where my Lady Pen flung me 
down upon the bed, and herself and others, one after another, upon 
me, and very merry we were." (Vol. iv. pp. 391, 392.) 

Later on Pepys describes her as " mighty homely 
and looks old." She was sufficiently good-looking, 
however, for him to make love to her. 

She and her husband were, no doubt, plain people, 
and when they married were in moderate circum- 
stances. The biographers describe Penn's birth- 
place near the Tower, as if his parents occupied the 
whole house ; but it seems they only lodged there. 
Pepys, who for many years associated with them 
very intimately, gives us an account of their begin- 
nings ; but he obtained it from a certain Mrs. Turner, 
who was evidently an atrocious gossip. 

" She [Mrs. Turner] says that he was a pityfull [fellow] when she 

first knew them ; that his lady was one of the sourest, dirty women, 

that ever she saw ; that they took two chambers, one over another, 

for themselves and child in Tower Hill ; that for many years together 

40 



\^' 



"^ ADMIRAL PENN 

they eat more meals at her house than at their own . . . that she 
brouglit my lady who then was a dirty slattern with her stockings 
hanging about her heels so that afterwards the people of the whole 
Hill did say that Mrs Turner had made Mrs Pen a gentlewoman." 
(Vol. vi. p. 329.) 

But after making full allowances for Mrs. Turner, 
we can readily understand that there was a founda- 
tion of truth for what she said. Admiral Penn also, 
though of a respectable family, was a rough man. 
He was brought up as a sailor, and at the time he 
married and took lodgings near the Tower he had 
only lately come out of the merchant service, a very 
rough and brutal school. Lord Clarendon, as we 
shall see, described him as a man who was always 
trying to put on the appearance of good breeding, 
and not always with success. His whole career 
shows that, starting with almost nothing, he had a 
consuming ambition to make a fortune and get into 
good society without being over-scrupulous as to 
the means he used. 

He is described on his tomb as descended from the 
Penns of Penns-Lodge, in the County of Wilts, and 
also from the Penns of Penn, in the County of Bucks. 
The family had apparently lived in those places from 
time immemorial, and that is all we know about 
them with any certainty. One of the ancestors is 
said to have been a monk in the Abbey of Glaston- 
bury, in Somersetshire. When the monasteries were 
dissolved in the beginning of the reformation by 
Henry VHL, this monk was granted some of the 
Abbey lands, where he established Penns-Lodge, 
married, and had several children. It is possible 
41 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

that from this man William Penn may have inherited 
his strong religious inclinations. 

Several traditions attempt to trace back still far- 
ther the family history. Penn himself believed that 
he was of Welsh origin ; and according to Watson's 
"Annals of Pennsylvania," * the Rev. Hugh David, 
who went to Philadelphia in 1700, relates that he 
and Penn were on the ship together, when Penn, 
seeing a goat gnawing a broom, said, — 

" Hugh, dost thou ol^serve that goat ? See what hardy fellows the 
Welsh are, how they can feed on a broom. However, Hugh, I am 
a Welshman myself, and will relate by how strange a circumstance 
our family lost their name. My grandfather (or great-grandfather) 
was named John Tudor, and lived upon the top of a hill or mountain 
in Wales ; he was generally called John Penmunrith which in Eng- 
lish is ' John on the top of a hill.' He removed from Wales into 
Ireland, where he acquired considerable property. Upon his return 
into his own country, he was addressed by his old friends and neigh- 
bors, not in the former way, but by the name of Mr. Penn. He 
afterwards removed to London, where he continued to reside under 
the name of John Penn, which has since been the family name." 

Some of the details of this statement are not con- 
sistent with the rest of the family history ; and in a 
letter written by Penn's son, John Penn, to the Rev. 
Dr. Smith, of Philadelphia, still another origin is 
suggested. It seems some woman in France named 
De Penn, or possibly De la Penne, had written to 
the Penns in England, claiming relationship with 
them. Some of her family, she said, had gone to 
England with William the Conqueror. This origin, 
seeming to be more flattering to the family pride, 
has been adopted by some writers ; but there is no 

* Vol. i. p. 119. 
4« 



ADMIRAL PENN 

proof of its correctness. Of the two, the Welsh 
origin is the more Hkely to be the true one. 

But for our purpose we need go no farther back 
than Giles Penn, the grandfather of WilHam Penn. 
The family appear to have lived in Bucks and Wilts 
as respectable people of some means, belonging to 
the country gentry. But we must not think of the 
country gentleman of that time as anything like 
what he has been during the last century in England. 
He was a very rough farmer, leading a life of rude 
plenty, not on a country-seat with trim lawns and 
gardens, but on rugged acres, with his cattle and 
chickens of first importance, and allowed to wander 
under his bedroom windows. Instead of the excel- 
lent education, foreign travel, and familiarity with 
London for a few months every year, which charac- 
terize the squire of modern times, he seldom saw 
London more than once in his lifetime, he had 
never travelled, and his education was usually of 
the poorest. He was an aristocrat only because he 
held the political power in his county, presiding as 
a magistrate, and commanding the trainbands. In 
other respects his manners as well as his life were 
rude and boorish. 

Whatever position the Penn family had they seem 
to have been unable to support towards the close of 
the sixteenth century, for the ancestral farm, Penns- 
Lodge, passed out of their hands, and we find that 
Giles Penn took to a seafaring life. 

Commerce and shipping gave good opportunities 
in those days for making a fortune ; and Giles Penn 
no doubt was anxious to restore his family position, 
43 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

and even to make it better than it had been. But 
the greatest opportunities for fortune-making came 
to the men who were courtiers, office-holders, or 
officers in the army or navy. The salaries of the 
courtiers who held office seem very large for the 
times ; but the perquisites and opportunities under 
the system of corruption which prevailed were 
enormous. The population of England was then 
considerably less than five million, and the popula- 
tion of London not half a million ; but the office of 
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, for example, was 
supposed to be worth forty thousand pounds a year ; 
and from this high official down to the lowest clerk, 
tide-waiter, or gauger, the same methods of gross 
corruption gave opportunities which varied only in 
degree. 

Next in importance after the court officials for 
their opportunities for making money were the naval 
officers. Corruption and peculation were, if any- 
thing, more rife in the navy than at court ; and war- 
vessels were constantly employed to carry from port 
to port bullion and other valuable cargoes which 
merchants dared not trust to ordinary vessels. In 
this service naval captains, being in a position to 
demand large rewards, often made several thousand 
pounds by a short voyage. 

The merchant marine was closely connected with 
the navy, for merchant ships were usually armed, 
carrying sometimes thirty or forty guns, and were 
often taken into the navy in large numbers to assist 
the public war-vessels. A training in the merchant 
service gave opportunities for entering the navy. 



ADMIRAL PENN 

Giles Penn secured the release of some captives held 
by the Selee rovers, as the pirates of Algiers were 
then called, and for this service he was to have been 
made vice-admiral of a fleet to be fitted out to 
punish the Algerincs. He never received his com- 
mission, however ; but instead of it was made consul 
to the Mediterranean ports. 

He failed to enjoy the lucrative opportunities of 
the navy, but he was determined that his son, the 
father of William Penn, should enjoy all that the 
navy had to bestow. He trained the boy most 
carefully on his own ship in the practice and theory 
of navigation, and the youth entered the navy of 
King Charles I. before he was twenty, and was at 
once given the rank of lieutenant. When he was 
twenty-one years old, in 1642, he was made a cap- 
tain. He almost immediately married, and within a 
little over a year his famous son William was born. 

So William Penn was the son of a very young 
man, almost a boy, but in command of the " Fel- 
lowship" of twenty-eight guns, with orders to join 
the fleet of Admiral Swanley in the Irish seas. Two 
years afterwards the father was made Rear-Admiral 
of Ireland ; in 1646 he was given command of a 
squadron as Vice-Admiral of Ireland, and by the 
time he was thirty-one he was Vice-Admiral of 
England. 

This seems nowadays most ridiculously rapid ad- 
vancement, and in lives of the admiral and also in 
lives of William Penn it is described in a way to 
give the impression that this youth must have been 
a naval prodig>^ But in the condition of affairs at 
45 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

that time a man rose in the navy very rapidly, in- 
deed ahnost instantly, under certain circumstances, 
so that such a thing as a boy admiral was not al- 
together impossible. 

Clowes, in his " History of the British Navy," has 
described what a man-of-war was in those days. It 
was a beautiful creation of art, carved from stem to 
stern with a richness of curves and tracery which is 
the wonder and despair of modern eyes. It was 
more beautiful, indeed, than serviceable, and it is no 
exaggeration to say that within it was very often, so 
far as the crew were concerned, a floating hell and 
pest-house. 

The sailors were wretched criminal creatures, col- 
lected largely by the press-gang, so ill paid and so 
seldom paid that they were continually in mutiny, 
and so ill fed that they were continually robbing and 
marauding for food. A mob of them once threat- 
ened to besiege the court at White Hall, and actu- 
ally seized the Guild Hall at Plymouth. The sick 
were turned ashore starving, and the rapid mortality 
on many of the ships from disease and dirt Wcis 
frightful. They were punished for bad conduct by 
ducking, keel-hauling, tongue-scraping, flogging, 
dragging through the water at the stern of a row- 
boat, tying up with weights about the neck, and a 
sailor that slept four times on watch was lashed to 
the bowsprit and left there to starve to death or 
drown. 

The officers who commanded them were more 
fortunate, and led a sumptuous, jovial life. Pepys, 
when with the fleet that brought back Charles II. 
46 



ADMIRAL PENN 

from Holland, describes how they spent the after- 
noon in playing nine-pins on the quarter deck, with 
a grand dinner in the evening, followed by music 
and heavy drinking, which sent every one to bed 
quite mellow. The captains and officers had their 
mistresses on board, or, as some accounts put it, 
their harems, and there were also abandoned women 
allowed among the crew. 

Many of the officers in highest command, the cap- 
tains and admirals, were landsmen without special 
training, and they bought and sold their commands 
and indulged in unlimited corruption and peculation. 

" The dock-yard officials robbed wholesale ; the captains turned 
their ships into cargo-boats for their own profit, and conspired with 
the pursers to forge and sell seamen's tickets ; carpenters, gunners, 
boatswains, and pursers cheated and swindled ; imaginary men were 
borne in nearly all ships, and their wages were shared among the 
officers; and government store-houses were converted into surrep- 
titious residences for government servants and their families." 
(Clowes's "Royal Navy," vol. ii. p. 19.) 

Military men entered the navy as freely as lands- 
men. At that time, and, indeed, in all the pre- 
vious history of the world, there was no complete 
separation between the naval and military depart- 
ments of a nation. In ancient times Pompey and 
Agrippa commanded forces both on sea and land. 
Lord Howard, who commanded the British fleet 
that defeated the Spanish Armada, was a lands- 
man. Sir Walter Raleigh w^as both an admiral and 
a general. 

In Penn's time the best admirals, except himself, 
were landsmen, and naval captains were often spoken 
47 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

of as colonels. Blake, who was the greatest of them, 
and who, indeed, is usually considered one of the 
two or three greatest admirals that Britain has pro- 
duced, was a soldier, and never went to sea until he 
was fifty years old. Prince Rupert, who commanded 
the cavalry of Charles L, also commanded a fleet. 
Dean and Montagu, of that time, were also military 
men. General Monk, who restored Charles IL to 
the throne, also took his turn on the sea. It was he 
who, when he wanted his ship turned to the port 
side, aroused the amusement of his crew by giving 
the order, " Left wheel !" 

The reason why military men succeeded so well 
in command of fleets would seem to be that the 
navy had few, if any, regularly trained officers who 
could be raised to positions of large responsibility. 
Those who had a knowledge of seamanship were 
mostly mere tarpaulins, with neither education, man- 
ners, nor honesty. They had risen from the forecastle, 
and many of them had been captains of privateers, 
an occupation which did not improve their morals. 
There were some exceptions to this rule. Sir Chris- 
topher Mings, Sir John Narborough, and Sir Clouds- 
ley Shovel had begun life as cabin-boys. But for 
the most part men of this sort were valuable only 
for certain purposes within a limited sphere. They 
were incapable of forming comprehensive plans or 
dealing with complicated situations, and they were 
compelled to yield the important commands to mili- 
tary men of wider attainments and more general 
education and experience. 

Penn rose to be an admiral at twenty-three for the 
48 



ADMIRAL PENN 

reason apparently that he was a rare instance of a 
man with practical sea experience, who also had 
enough education and breadth of mind to take the 
responsibility of a large command. At heart he was 
a Royalist and preferred the king's cause ; but his 
rapid promotions were received from Parliament and 
Cromwell. The army had gone over to the king 
and the navy had taken the side of Parliament. 
The crews, which had been starved and tortured 
under the king, thought they saw brighter prospects 
in the popular cause. They went over in large num- 
bers, and Penn went with them. He was deter- 
mined to rise in his profession, whatever flag he 
fought under, and he rightly judged that the popu- 
lar and parliamentary cause would, for a time at 
least, be successful. He commanded the squadron 
that met with such ill success in its operations on 
the Irish coast ; but the failure was through no fault 
of his. He distinguished himself, and the Parlia- 
ment voted him their thanks for his "courage and 
fidelity." 

Soon afterwards he was put under arrest, appar- 
ently because he was suspected of having, as, indeed, 
he had, a secret interest in the king's cause. He was 
released, however, soon promoted, and it was not 
long before he commanded the squadron which went 
in pursuit of the ships of that gallant landsman. 
Prince Rupert. But, although Penn followed him 
through the English Channel and even into the 
Mediterranean, the cavalryman eluded the trained 
sailor on his own element. 

Penn's greatest service now followed in the naval 
4 49 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

war which Cromwell waged for two years with Hol- 
land. The Dutch, thinking they could wrest from 
the English the empire of the sea, refused to follow 
the ancient custom by which all ships had for ages 
saluted the British flag. This honor of the flag was 
originally a mere courtesy in recognition of the pro- 
tection English ships had always given to the traders 
of all nations. But British men-of-war had now for a 
long time demanded it as a right and an insignia of 
their country's supremacy on the ocean. It was under 
this same principle of supremacy that they claimed 
the right of search which brought on the war of the 
United States with England in 1 8 1 2. 

In the three terrible battles of the Dutch war, in 
which more than a hundred ships were engaged on 
each side, Penn greatly distinguished himself In the 
second battle the Dutch Admiral Tromp grappled 
Penn's ship, and boarded him. Penn's sailors re- 
pulsed the attack, followed the enemy on to their 
own ship, and drove them below the hatches, where, 
with reckless courage, they exploded part of their 
powder, blowing their decks, with the English on 
them, into the air. The survivors of Penn's crew 
rushed back into the Dutch ship, and Tromp would 
have been taken if two other admirals — De Ruyter 
and De Witte had not come to his rescue. For his 
services in this battle Penn was given the rank of 
general-at-sea. 

The next year, 1654, he was sent by Cromwell in 

command of a fleet, accompanied by an army under 

General Venables, to capture as many as possible of 

the Spanish West Indian islands. And now a strange 

50 



ADMIRAL PENN 

thing happened, which disclosed Admiral Penn's 
character and had a most important bearing on the 
career of his son. Both the admiral and General 
Venables secretly sent word to Charles II., then 
living in exile on the continent, that if he wished it, 
they would turn over the fleet and army to him. 

Charles thanked them, but declined their assistance, 
because he had no place to keep either a fleet or an 
army. But he would, he said, remember their offer ; 
and neither he nor his brother and successor, James 
II., ever forgot it. The fortune of Admiral Penn 
and of his son William was made by this act. 
Through the royal favor which flowed from it for 
the next fifty years William Penn delivered Quakers 
from prison, led the life of a successful courtier, and 
received the grant of the vast territory of Pennsyl- 
vania. Yet it was an act which cannot be regarded 
now in any other light than that of dishonorable 
treacheiy. 

Cromwell and the parliamentary party had made 
Admiral Penn all that he was, had given him his rapid 
promotion, his estates in Ireland, and raised him to 
the important command which made his offer of the 
fleet seem a thing of great value in the eyes of 
Charles II. and his brother. It was common enough 
all through the civil war for men in the employ of 
Parliament to correspond secretly with the exiled 
king. Some of these were sincerely devoted to the 
king's cause ; but most of them were merely put- 
ting out an anchor to windward in case the king 
should return. Penn went farther than any of them, 
and overstepped all bounds. He, no doubt, saw 
51 



THE TRUE WILT.IAM PENN 

that the parHamentary cause was gradually waning, 
and he was determined that his anchor to windward 
should be the largest and most powerful of all. 

At that time, however, professional honor was un- 
known in the British navy, and, brought up in the 
midst of all kinds of official corruption and the moral 
looseness of the civil war, it is not likely that Ad- 
miral Penn's conscience was seriously troubled. 
Anxious he must have been for the outcome of 
such a daring and dangerous move ; but the end 
showed that he had calculated with the most perfect 
shrewdness and cunning.* 

It has been supposed that Cromwell knew at 
once of this offer of the fleet and army to Charles ; 
but, cool and sagacious as he always was, he said 
nothing, made no move, and doubtless laughed with 
grim Puritan humor when he heard that the offer 
had been rejected. This is highly probable ; for he 
spent, it is said, sixty thousand pounds annually in 
maintaining spies at the court of Charles, and if he 
did not know of the offer at once, it seems quite 
certain that he soon heard of it. He knew, no 
doubt, that the offer must necessarily be refused, 
and that Penn was merely placing his great anchor 
to windward for future contingencies. So he allowed 

* His son William, with amusing vagueness, has attempted to ex- 
plain his father's double service to both Cromwell and the king: 
" 'Tis true, he was actually engaged both under the Parliament and 
king, but not as an actor in our late domestic troubles ; his compass 
always steering him to eye a national concern and not intestine wars, 
and therefore not so aptly theirs [the Parliament's] in a way of 
opposition as the nation's." — Granville Penn's Memorials of Sir Wil- 
liam Penn, vol. ii. p. 569. 

52 



ADMIRAL PENN 

the expedition to go on as it had been planned, 
well knowing that Penn's professional pride would 
compel him to do his best. 

The expedition failed utterly against San Domingo, 
but not from any fault of Penn, for the army, which 
was hopelessly inefficient, alone took part in the 
attack. In the attack on Jamaica both army and 
fleet acted together ; the island fell into their hands 
without a struggle, and is still a British colony. 

As soon as Admiral Penn returned to England he 
was committed to the Tower on the charge of com- 
ing home without leave. But that was evidently not 
the real reason. Cromwell shrewdly judged that he 
had obtained from him all the service that was pos- 
sible or safe. He was ordered to confess his fault, 
surrender his commission as general-at-sea, and 
make his submission to the Lord Protector. When 
he had done all this, he was set free both from prison 
and from the navy. He was rendered as harmless 
as possible short of putting him to death or im- 
prisoning him for life, which would not have been 
politic. He retired to Ireland to the estates that 
had been given him for his services by Cromwell, 
and there waited and in a mild way plotted for the 
restoration of the king. 

On the eve of the restoration he was summoned 
from his retirement to represent in Parliament the 
town of Weymouth, and he hurried to Holland to 
be the bearer of the glad tidings to Charles. He 
was immediately knighted, made commissioner of 
admiralty, and governor of Kinsale. His Irish es- 
tates were given back to their royalist owner from 
53 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

whom Cromwell had taken them, and in place of 
them other estates in Ireland were given to Penn. 

He had achieved a large part of his ambition, 
which was to make a fortune, become a courtier, 
associate with noblemen, and perhaps become one. 
Henceforth his life was passed in the court circles, 
for that alone could satisfy him. He was at heart 
an intensely ardent Royalist and aristocrat, and al- 
though he had aided the Cromwellian and parlia- 
mentary cause, he had in the end used it most 
cleverly to advance his own royalist interests. 

The king and his brother James, Duke of York, 
bound Penn closely to themselves. The duke be- 
came Lord High Admiral, and took Penn into his 
personal service. In the campaign against the 
Dutch, in 1665, Penn, with the title great captain 
commander, was on the duke's ship as his confiden- 
tial adviser, for the duke was a landsman ; and in 
this relation, in which he practically commanded the 
fleet, Penn took part in the famous and decisive 
battle against the Dutch admiral, Opdam. 

This was the last of Penn's sea service. He was 
only about forty-five years old ; but his health was 
already broken by severe attacks of the gout, and 
he died in 1670, before he was fifty. He was rather 
young to have the gout so badly ; but he was, it 
seems, a heavy drinker, and probably also a heavy 
eater after the manner of those times. 

" In the evening at Sir W. Pen's with my wife at supper : he in a 
mad ridiculous, drunken humour ; and it seems there have been some 
late distances between his lady and him as my [wife] tells me." 
(•' Pepys Diary," vol. v. p. 434.) 

54 




ADMIRAL PENN 



ADMIRAL PENN 

" Sir W Pen half drunk did talk like a fool and vex his wife." 
(Vol. vi. pp. 330, 331.) 

The portrait of Admiral Penn at the age of forty- 
five, painted by Sir Peter Lely, is a most inter- 
esting picture, and shows a handsome, but not a 
dissipated face. The Historical Society of Pennsyl- 
vania, however, possesses a portrait of him, of un- 
certain authenticity, with a large, bloated nose, fully 
justifying Pepys's description. 

The best that Pepys has to say of him is that he 
was "a very sociable man and an able man and 
very cunning." But his rise, Pepys assures us, was 
due to large bribes and all sorts of irregular prac- 
tices. By this means he became general-at-sea 
under Cromwell, and by the same means got himself 
out of the Tower in Cromwell's time. In the civil 
war, Pepys says, he was a devilish plunderer, and 
by that means got his estates in Ireland. In fact, 
Pepys is never tired of calling him a false fellow 
and a rogue, and describing the " sluttishness of his 
family." * 

It should be remembered, however, that Pepys 
was also enriching himself while in the service of the 
Admiralty by every opportunity ; and no doubt 
Penn interfered with many of his schemes. Pepys's 
hatred of him, and yet continual association with 
him, is amusing at times, especially when Pepys is 
disgusted at the bad dinners he gets at Penn's house 
and complains that when he gives Penn a dinner the 
stupid sailor is unable to appreciate it. Pepys's 

* Vol. vi. pp. 330, 331 ; vol. vii. p. lOO. 
55 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

morals were bad, and he was intriguing with the 
wives of many of his acquaintances. In weighing 
what he says, we must remember that by his own 
statement he attempted famiharities with Admiral 
Penn's wife, and also had designs on his daughter. 

Lord Clarendon, who knew Penn well, has also 
left us a description of him : 

" Penn, who had much the worse understanding, had a great mind 
to appear better bred and to speak like a gentleman ; he had got 
many good words which he used at adventure ; he was a formal 
man and spake very leisurely, but much, and left the matter more 
intricate and perplexed than he found it." (Vol. ii. p. 354.) 

But I cannot give the whole life of the admiral. 
I have dwelt on many of the details of it principally 
to show what a strong hold he secured on the affec- 
tions of Charles IL and the Duke of York, for this 
was the foundation of his son's career. After his 
service against Opdam the duke wanted him to 
take another command at sea ; and when Penn de- 
clined, insisted on his acceptance. But military 
men were now in control of the navy, and they were 
very jealous of regular sailors like Penn. They had 
him impeached for helping himself too liberally to 
the silk, spices, and jewels on board some rich prizes 
that had been taken from the Dutch. He does not 
appear to have been guilty ; but the impeachment 
proceedings effectually blocked his appointment until 
it was too late for him to go to sea, and then the 
prosecution was dropped. 

The king, anxious to reward him, was about to 
raise him to the peerage under the title of Viscount 
Weymouth ; but his son William had by this time 
56 



ADMIRAL PENN 

become a Quaker and was protesting loudly against 
all titles as vanities of the flesh. It seemed ridicu- 
lous to give a title that would descend to such a 
strange fanatic, and the king's good intentions were 
checked. So the admiral, through his nuisance of a 
son, failed to attain what was, no doubt, one of the 
chief objects of his ambition. But he had picked up 
in one way or another a considerable fortune, which 
he left to the deluded boy ; and, most important of 
all, he left him the extreme good-will and affection 
of Charles II. and tlie Duke of York, who became 
James II. 

He had lent to the crown various sums of money, 
and these at the time of his death, with the arrears of 
his pay, amounted to over tv/elve thousand pounds. 
Eleven years afterwards the debt, with interest, had 
grown to sixteen thousand pounds, and was liquidated 
by the grant to the son of the province of Pennsyl- 
vania. 



IV 

EARLY INFLUENCES 

During all of Admiral Penn's service for Crom- 
well and the Parliament his son William remained 
with his Dutch mother at Wanstead, living quietly 
while the battle of Naseby was fought and Bridge- 
water and Bristol stormed, and the unfortunate King 
Charles beheaded in 1649. Penn was only five 
years old in 1649, and up to that time public events 
could not have made much impression on him. The 
foundation of his opinions inherited from his father 
was royalist, and his close relations with King 
Charles and King James afterwards made him still 
more of a Royalist. But the principles of the oppo- 
site party — the principles of liberty and free govern- 
ment — also made a deep impression on him, and he 
was, as we shall see, a curious mixture of the two 
political parties. His liberal ideas seem to have 
been imbibed in his early youth at Wanstead, when 
his father was away for years and never saw him. 
He heard a great deal there about civil liberty and 
the rights of Parliament, and during the subsequent 
six or seven years, as he became more impression- 
able, he continued to hear the same principles. 

A new era began with the death of King Charles. 
In fact, a new England was created. Parliamentary 
58 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

government and national consent, as against mon- 
archy and despotism, got a surer foothold than they 
had ever had before, a foothold which they strug- 
gled to keep until the boy William Penn lived to see 
them, much to his surprise, securely and perma- 
nently established by William IIL in 1688. 

He lived at Wanstead until he was twelve years 
old, and during that time saw little or nothing of his 
father the admiral, who sailed to join the fleet on the 
Irish coast two days before his son was born, and 
after that was in continuous sea employment until 
he returned from the taking of Jamaica. 

The boy went to school at Wanstead, and seems 
to have received the regular training in Latin, 
Greek, and mathematics which was given at that 
time. Wanstead and the village of Chigwell near by 
were pretty places, with all the advantages of coun- 
try life and amusements. Penn was afterwards at 
college fond of athletic sports, and he doubtless 
laid the foundation for this taste in the fields and 
woods of his country home. 

This same country neighborhood was intensely 
Puritan, and this seems to have had an important 
influence on the future Quaker leader. It no doubt 
modified his inherited royalist opinions, and it is not 
unlikely that during those twelve years he uncon- 
sciously received from his surroundings that tinge 
of thought which led to Quakerism. Puritans were 
in the habit of discussing religious subjects day and 
night; and the burden of all that the boy heard 
would be rejection of forms and ceremonies and 
more or less reliance on the individual judgment. 
59 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

The Quakers carried individual judgment farther 
than the Puritans, but the Puritan state of mind was 
a natural foundation for Quakerism. There was no 
sect that the Puritans despised so much as they de- 
spised the Quakers; but, unconsciously, they had 
made easier the path to Quakerism. 

We are confirmed in this view by learning that, 
when he was only eleven years old, Penn, when alone 
one day in his room, had a religious experience, as 
it is called. 

" He was suddenly surprised with an inward comfort ; and, as he 
thought, an external glory in the room, which gave rise to religious 
emotions, during which he had the strongest conviction of the being 
of God, and that the soul of man was capable of enjoying communi- 
cation with Him. He believed also that the seal of divinity had 
been put upon him at this moment, or that he had been awakened or 
called upon to a holy life." 

The teaching of the Church of England at that 
time would not have led a boy to such an experi- 
ence ; but emotionalism of that sort was an almost 
every-day experience among the Puritans, and he 
had, no doubt, heard many edifying accounts of it. 
Indeed, it is impossible to find in Penn during his 
youth any trace of Church of England teaching. 
His bent was radically the other way ; and it is 
highly probable that it was started by the influences 
at Wanstead. 

This was unfortunate for his father, the admiral, 
whose aristocratic tastes and ambition for a peerage 
led him to see nothing but folly in any deviation 
from the religion of the crown and the court. The 
great object of his life had been to restore the for- 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

tunes of his family and advance their position ; and 
he could not see a way to this end for his son 
through Puritan cant and emotionalism. If he had 
been at home during those first twelve years of his 
son's life, he might have seen and counteracted the 
dangerous influence. But he was away, and was 
now to reap bitter fruit from that absence. 

When the admiral, on his return from Jamaica, 
was put in the Tower by Cromwell, his wife and 
son left Wanstead and came to live where the son 
had been born, in the little court close to the Tower. 
But the admiral, on his release, went to his estates 
in Ireland, and was again separated from his son. 
After the Restoration they saw more of each other ; 
but then it was too late, and at no time had the 
father any sufficient opportunity to exert such an 
influence as would shape the boy as he wished him 
to be. 

In October, 1660, when he was sixteen years old, 
Penn was sent to Christ Church College, at Oxford. 
Christ Church had always been largely the college 
of the aristocracy, and the foster mother of some 
very famous men. Besides Penn, we find among the 
alumni, Locke, the philosopher ; South, the famous 
preacher ; Liddell, Liddon, Pusey, Gladstone, Gold- 
win Smith, the present Prince of Wales, Lord Duf- 
ferin. Lord Salisbury, a host of minor diplomats and 
statesmen, and the historians Gardiner and Stubbs. 

Penn was entered as a gentleman commoner, and 
matriculated as a knight's son. The selection of the 
college was evidently part of the admiral's design 
of pushing on his son towards preferment and a high 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

career, fitting him for the position of a nobleman 
and a courtier. At college he would acquire the 
manners and tastes of a gentleman, and make the 
acquaintance of the aristocracy ; and afterwards the 
admiral's influence at court would secure for him 
office, advancement, and those irregular opportunities 
for making a great fortune. 

But Oxford at that time was not altogether well 
suited to accomplish an object of that kind. For 
many years it had been under the influence of the 
Puritans. Before the civil war they had railed at 
both the universities as " nurseries of wickedness, 
nests of mutton tuggers, dens of formal droanes, 
and cages of unclean birds." When the success of 
the parliamentary forces let the Puritans into power, 
they proceeded to make the universities what they 
thought they should be. Honest old Anthony 
Wood tells us in his diary how unpleasantly they 
impressed him. They were factious, saucy, con- 
ceited, morose, and delighted in plots, he says. 
They affected temperance, but tippled privately in 
their own rooms and crept into taverns at the back 
door. They protested against cavalier cursing and 
swaggering, but were themselves sneaking, tale-bear- 
ing, and jealous. 

Penn arrived in Oxford in the year of the restora- 
tion, when the influence of the Church of England 
had been restored, or rather had been ordered to be 
restored. The organ of Magdalen College, which 
Cromwell had taken for his own private use at 
Hampton Court, was brought back ; the other organs 
which had been removed from college chapels were 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

returned ; the surplice was once more worn at the 
services, and the prayer-book took the place of the 
extemporaneous efforts of Puritan ministers. At all 
this, Wood tells us, the Puritans " whined and made 
ugly faces ;" they ridiculed the surplice and the 
prayer-book, and compared the organs to the 
squealing of pigs. 

Such a strong influence as Puritanism had been 
could not be wiped out of Oxford in a few months. 
The Puritan clergy and dons could not be all dis- 
missed at once. Many of them merely conformed 
outwardly to the changed times, and we should 
naturally expect that Puritanism would lurk for a 
long time in the corridors and secret corners of the 
ancient architecture which Puritanism affected to 
despise. 

The churchmen did all they could to suppress it 
and build up the royal party. They encouraged 
the Sunday amusements which the Puritans had 
abolished ; they stopped the old Puritan custom of 
taking notes of sermons and repeating sermons at 
home, and the singing of psalms after supper. They 
allowed people to loiter in the streets, sit on benches, 
walk in the fields, or drink in the taverns on Sunday, 
all of which had only a short time before been ac- 
counted most damnable practices. They encouraged 
May games, morrises, revels, and plays, and they did 
all these things in excess because the Puritans hated 
them. A great deal of the extravagance of the cava- 
lier character, the excessive swearing and swagger- 
ing, the reckless devotion to amusements, and the 
delivery of mock sermons, was a reaction from the 
63 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

opposite extreme of the Puritans, and assumed out 
of mere hatred for the mahgnants who had murdered 
the king. 

Young WilHam Penn, thrown suddenly among 
such strange conflicts in college life, seems to have 
revolted from the vicious part of these cavalier habits. 
But, unfortunately, we have scarcely any details of 
him at this time, and are left to inferences. He after- 
wards spoke of having while in college been sus- 
tained by God "in the midst of that hellish darkness 
and debauchery." 

The efforts of the churchmen. Wood tells us, had 
their effect on many of the Puritans, and he gives 
most amusing descriptions of how they would cringe 
for preferment, and say that they were sorry that 
they had formerly allowed themselves to go with 
the times ; they had all along been at heart with the 
royal party, but were afraid to avow it. They began 
to frequent the taverns openly ; they stripped off 
their puritanical clothes, and would "put on cas- 
socks reaching to their heels, tied close with a sanc- 
tified circingle." They had hated a square cap; 
now they could not dispense with one. Those who 
had for years been wearing the demure face of a 
saint now assumed a "wanton countenance," and 
would utter "a pretty little oath." They would 
make " long legs and scrapes" to Royalists, and turn 
informer against their own people.* 

The king's brother, Henry, Duke of Gloucester, 
had died of the small-pox only about a month before 



^ Wood's Diary (ed. of 1891), pp. 293, 359, 360, 366, etc. 
64 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

Penn arrived in Oxford, and the nation, now enthu- 
siastically royalist, went into mourning for him. The 
university' also assumed the royalist tone, and pub- 
lished a volume of verses, entitled "Threnodia," on 
the young duke's death, and Penn contributed to 
this volume some Latin lines. From this we may 
infer that the young man was royalist in his sym- 
pathies, or trying to be. He often afterwards showed 
royalist feelings, so far as politics were concerned ; 
but in reHgion he was on the Puritan side at Oxford. 

He sympathized, it seems, with the Puritan pro- 
tests against the changes at Oxford, — the surplices, 
the revels, and recklessness. There seem to have 
been several open rebellions against the surplice. 
One night Puritan students collected all of these 
abhorrent vestments they could find and dumped 
them into a vile cesspool, punching them down 
with sticks. From this defilement they were res- 
cued by the authorities, and that and the subse- 
quent cleaning of them was thought to be a grand 
joke. Wood gives the details of the escapade and 
also some verses of the time, which could not now 
by any possibility be printed. There is no evidence 
that Penn was connected with this particular affair ; 
but, as we shall see hereafter, he was concerned with 
some religious protests, probably against the sur- 
plices, for which he was expelled from college. 

It would seem as if his father had not chosen 
wisely in sending him to Christ Church. But Puri- 
tanism lurked in all the English colleges, and the 
lad, in spite of his siding with the Puritan feeling, 
took kindly to many of those arts which would make 
5 65 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

him the sort of man his father wanted him to be. He 
was fond of athletic sports, and became proficient in 
them ; but, unfortunately, in this, as in other parts of 
his youthful career, we have no details of his efforts 
or success. From what we know of his writings and 
subsequent career, he must have studied fairly well, 
like a gentleman, and not like a bookworm or re- 
cluse. He seemed safe enough, and he was in real- 
ity safe from Puritanism ; but he was suddenly caught 
by another ism that was abroad in those days, and 
in his father's eyes more abhorrent, degrading, and 
unfortunate than even Puritanism could be. 



THE QUAKERS 

The Quakers, or Friends, as they preferred to be 
called, were a verj'- peculiar people both in their ori- 
gin and in their belief, and when Penn was a young 
man at college they had been in existence as a dis- 
tinct sect only about ten years. They were making 
terrible trouble and commotion in England. Large 
numbers of them were refusing to pay the tithes or 
taxes which every one was bound by law to pay for 
the support of the Established Church. They wrote 
books and pamphlets ridiculing the tax, and steadily 
refused to pay it, until the sheriff was obliged to 
seize their property and sell it for treble the amount 
of the tax, or imprison them. Their resistance to 
this tax seemed to those in authority but little short 
of open rebellion and an encouragement to riot and 
disorder. 

They disturbed the administration of justice by 
refusing to take an oath in court or to be sworn on 
an affidavit. The Scriptures, they said, had com- 
manded, "Swear not at all," and oaths were a blas- 
phemous as well as a useless means of compelling 
truthful statements. They persisted also in wearing 
their hats in court-rooms and in the presence of 
important persons. Hats were then worn in church, 
the clergy preached in them, they were worn at 
67 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

dinner, and, as a rule, more generally than in modern 
times. Thus the few occasions when they were 
taken off were more distinctly occasions of respect. 
A son must always uncover before his father, every 
one uncovered before the king, and ordinary per- 
sons seem to have uncovered before the nobility. 
But the Quaker hat remained unmoved on these oc- 
casions. They uncovered, they said, only in prayer 
as an act of worship, and it would be a dishonor to 
their Maker to treat men in the same manner. 

They refused to address any one by his title or 
rank ; they would not even use the title mister ; and 
bluntly called every one by his first name. They 
also addressed every one indiscriminately as thee 
and thou because the use of the plural you had 
originated, they said, in the vanity of compliment. 
Thee and thou were used at that time only to ser- 
vants and inferiors ; and no other Quaker peculiarity 
seems to have given so much offence as this one. 
Penn describes the indignation with which people 
would turn on a Quaker and exclaim, " Thou me, 
thou my dog ! If thou thou'st me, I'll thou thy 
teeth down thy throat." To which the Quaker 
would reply by asking, " Why, then, dost thou al- 
ways address God in thy prayers by thee and 
thou?" 

Penn seems to have used the thee and thou lan- 
guage rather sparingly. In his private letters to ac- 
quaintances who were Quakers he of course used it 
freely ; and he sometimes used it to those who were 
not Quakers, when he was indignant or angry ; but 
in his important public letters he often managed 



THE QUAKERS 

to avoid it altogether, and for the reason, no doubt, 
that, being, an educated man, he would not give un- 
necessary offence. 

The rest of the early Quakers, however, were 
mostly people of the lower orders, already rough 
enough in their ways, and they seemed to the upper 
classes of that time determined to make their religion 
as offensive and vulgar as possible. They preached in 
taverns and in the streets and fields, gathering crowds 
which those who disliked them said were a menace 
to peace and good order. They walked along the 
streets giving prophecies and warnings of doom in 
a strange monotonous voice which was a variation 
on the drawl of the Puritans. They trembled as 
they spoke, and from this, or because George Fox 
had bade the magistrates tremble at the word of the 
Lord, they were called Quakers. They went into 
church during service and interrupted the preacher 
with sharp critical comment, and were often so wild 
and fantastic that they broke up the congregation. 

The women among them preached and took the 
part of men. They would keep the fasts and holy 
days of neither Churchman nor Puritan. They trav- 
elled on Sunday, and some of them even opened 
their shops on Sunday. Occasionally some of them 
would become almost insane, break bottles in a 
church as a sign, or go half naked, like Solomon 
Eccles, who, having stripped himself to the waist, 
walked through a town with a pan of fire and brim- 
stone on his head. 

In a word, judged by the standard of that time, 
their manners to both Churchmen and Puritans were 
69 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

detestable ; and when the substance of their belief 
was known it seemed worse than their manners. 

They denied the validity of all the sacraments ; 
not merely the numerous sacraments of the Roman 
church, but they denied baptism and the Lord's 
Supper, which were retained by the Protestants. 
They denied every dogma and doctrine not only of 
the Roman church, but of all the Protestant churches 
as well. They refused to accept the complicated 
doctrine of the Trinity as stated in the Athanasian 
creed. They declared that a man was not bound to 
believe more than his reason could comprehend. 
They even regarded the Scriptures differently from 
most Protestants ; for while they admitted the va- 
lidity of the Bible as a guide and comfort, they 
insisted that they were capable of receiving reve- 
lations in addition to and independent of it. 

They protested against original sin and the whole 
system of doctrine by which it was believed to be 
impossible for man to be anything but a sinner ; and 
in place of it they announced their belief in the pos- 
sibility of human perfection on earth. This was a 
bold doctrine, lifting at once that vast burden which 
had weighed down so many human hearts, but it 
brought them the most intense hatred and contempt 
of both Catholics and Protestants. 

They protested against all clergymen and preachers 
who received a reward for their services, calling them 
a hireling ministry. Their own preachers were un- 
paid, and they protested against higher education 
and learning, which, they said, was a hinderance to 
any one who wished to preach the religion of Christ. 
70 



THE QUAKERS 

They called churches "priest-houses" or "steeple- 
houses;" and they objected to the use of the word 
church as applied to a building or a corporate body. 
The church of Christ was in their minds a purely 
spiritual conception or spiritual body, if such a term 
can be used. 

They appeared to have only one important doc- 
trine that was not negative, and that was their belief 
in what they called the inward light, which had 
been given by Christ to every one who came into 
the world, and was sufficient to guide him to all 
truth and save his soul without the aid of cere- 
monies, dogmas, priests, or churches. This light 
was not to be confounded with conscience, which 
was a natural quality of human nature, and existed 
in Adam before the fall. The inward light was in 
addition to conscience and intended to enlighten and 
assist it 

Their worship was formless, or rather formal in its 
formlessness. They sat silent in their meetings until 
some one was moved by the Spirit to pray or preach, 
and it was possible for a meeting to be conducted in 
entire silence from beginning to end. By this silent 
contemplation they cultivated the inward light and 
developed its growth and power in the soul. Two 
friends might hold in this way a silent meeting to- 
gether. Serenity, contemplation, and quietude were, 
therefore, essentials of their belief, for without them 
there could be no spiritual growth. 

They accordingly became opposed to everything 
that disturbed this habit of quietude. They pro- 
hibited among their members all games and amuse- 
71 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

ments, theatres, cards, balls, sports, and hazardous 
or exciting enterprises ; and as one of the most 
exciting occupations followed by men is politics and 
political discussion the Quakers as a class kept out 
of political life. An exception had to be made to 
this rule in Pennsylvania, where they were in control 
of the government, and there have been striking ex- 
ceptions in the case of distinguished individuals, like 
John Bright, who in our own time has been so emi- 
nent in modern British politics. William Penn can- 
not be said to have abstained from this form of 
mental disturbance, and, indeed, George Fox him- 
self and many of those Quakers who were im- 
prisoned for preaching their faith, seem to have led 
rather exciting lives. But as a sect they were very 
much inclined to retire within themselves and live to 
themselves, a habit which did not increase their 
popularity. 

Nor were they raised in the popular esteem of 
that age by their strenuous opposition to war as un- 
christian and their refusal to serve as soldiers. They 
were also very ardent believers in religious liberty ; 
indeed, it may be said that they were almost the 
only sincere advocates of it at that time ; but it was 
a doctrine by which no very great favor could be 
gained from either Churchman or Puritan. 

Nor was their leader and organizer, George Fox, 
the sort of man who would be at all pleasing to 
conservative people. He had scarcely any education, 
being barely able to read and write. His father was 
a weaver, and he himself, when a boy, was employed 
to herd sheep. But he was a strong character, with 
72 



THE QUAKERS 

boundless courage and an elemental vigor and 
energy which carried him over every obstacle. 

When only nineteen years old the religious unrest 
of the time seized upon his untamable spirit. He 
walked up and down his bedroom or wandered in 
the woods and fields full of the religious melancholy 
of the age, and wrestling with the strange wonderful 
thoughts which the Reformation had set afloat in the 
world. He consulted the clergy of the Established 
Church and the Puritan ministers, but they failed to 
satisfy him. They no doubt thought he was crazy, 
for one told him to smoke tobacco and sing psalms, 
and another advised him to go and have some blood 
let. Like many others, he became convinced that all 
forms of religion were corrupted and worthless. He 
wandered over the country and went to London, but 
found " all was dark and under the chain of dark- 
ness." He was in great trouble and distress of mind, 
with occasional reactions towards extreme happiness, 

" I fasted much," he says, " walked abroad in solitary places 
many days, and often took my Bible, and sat in hollow trees and 
lonesome places till night came on ; and frequently in the night 
walked mournfully about by myself ; for I was a man of sorrows in 
the time of the first workings of the Lord in me. . . . Though my 
exercises and troubles were very great, yet were they not so continued 
but that I had some intermissions, and was sometimes brought into 
such a heavenly joy, that I thought I had been in Abraham's bosom." 
(Journal, p. 6.) 

These inward torturings of the spirit, with violent 
reactions from joy to gloom, were every-day occur- 
rences then, and were manufacturing Cromwells, 
Puritans, Fifth Monarchy men, Quakers, or the en- 
thusiasts of Massachusetts, according to the material 
73 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

on which they worked. People screamed with ex- 
citement at the reHgious meetings in the fields, 
shouted, trembled, denounced themselves, and went 
into ecstasies over new ideas which now seem com- 
monplace enough. " I was struck with more terror 
by the preaching of James Nayler," said an old 
Cromwellian soldier, " than I was at the battle of 
Dunbar." But although we find many instances of 
this sort in the diaries and literature of the time, it 
would be difficult to find another which presents 
such a strange picture or one so typical of the age 
as this great powerful-souled boy sitting in a hollow 
tree with his Bible on his lap, and out of the wild 
mystic thoughts that were floating through his un- 
educated brain founding a new religion. 

He was only twenty-two when, among other 
strange thoughts, it suddenly occurred to him in his 
wanderings that human learning, the education of 
Oxford and Cambridge, was not a proper qualifica- 
tion for a minister of Christ. It was a natural 
thought, for he himself had none of that sort of 
education. He clung to the idea, and it shows the 
strange condition of the times that his vigorous per- 
sonality was able to force this ignorant boyish notion 
upon a whole sect. But the large majority of the 
Quakers, being of the uneducated classes, readily 
accepted Fox's dreams. 

He was inclined to impute to himself miraculous 
power, as can be readily seen in his journal, where 
he professes to have cast out an evil spirit, healed 
the sick, and seen visions. He describes his visit to 
Litchfield in most extraordinary language. 
74 



THE QUAKERS 

" As I went thus cry-ing through the streets there 
seemed to me a channel of blood running down the 
streets, and the market-place appeared a pool of 
blood." 

Macaulay's clever phrase, that his intellect was 
"in the most unhappy of all states, that is to say, too 
much disordered for liberty and not sufficiently dis- 
ordered for Bedlam," is hardly fair. In spite of his 
extraordinary interpretations of Scripture, he had in 
all practical matters great shrewdness and common 
sense, and so much courage and force of character 
that the Puritans tried to coax him to become an 
officer in the parliamentary army. Nor is it fair to 
judge him by his ungrammatical English, which had 
to be corrected for publication by better-educated 
Quakers. Not long before his time the world had 
been ruled for the most part by men who could 
barely write their names ; and even to this day one 
cannot read Fox's Journal without feeling the won- 
derful power and spirit of the man, and at times the 
homely beauty of his words. 

The movement of the time, which was revolting 
from dogma, got complete possession of him and 
swept him along. He rejected all the forms of re- 
ligion he found round him. He attended those 
strange meetings in the fields of that excited time 
where Churchmen, Baptists, Presbyterians, Indepen- 
dents, and all manner of sects met for public discus- 
sion and the asking of puzzling, mystical questions. 
He spoke at these gatherings and also among the 
people, who discussed the same questions at fairs, 
markets, and public resorts. 
75 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

He wandered all over England, stoned by mobs, 
imprisoned by magistrates, hooted at by boys, ridi- 
culed, wondered at, respected, hated, loved. He 
saw the strange sects that believed that women had 
no souls and those who relied on dreams, many of 
whom became Quakers. As we read his journal we 
seem to live in the England of that strange age. He 
argued with the Ranters, who sang, whistled, and 
danced before him. He was in jails where he found 
people almost eaten to death with lice. He faced 
raging women who threatened to tear out his hair, 
lusty butchers who said they would kill him ; and 
one of these, who always stuck out his tongue at 
Quakers, had, he assures us, the tongue so swollen 
that he could not draw it in, and so died. The con- 
ceit with which he describes his success and every- 
thing bowing down before him would be continually 
amusing if we did not so often come to passages of 
terrible cruelty or suffering, tender pathos, strong, 
honest sense, and noble sentiment. 

Gradually he found people of his way of thinking 
among those curious sects known as Familists and 
Seekers, until in a few years he had organized fol- 
lowers who were called Children of the Light, or 
Quakers. 

So he went on arguing with clergymen in their 
steeple-houses, writing letters to the magistrates who 
imprisoned him and to mayors and officials, rebuking 
them in such frank language that it is no wonder he 
had to make himself a suit of leather clothes, the 
better to endure his frequent and long imprison- 
ments. 

76 



THE QUAKERS 

What an unpleasant fellow he was who would go 
into a church and cry to the clergyman, — 

" Come down, thou deceiver ; dost thou bid people 
come freely and take of the waters of life, and yet 
thou takest three hundred pound a year of them." * 

In another church he argued with the clergyman 
until the congregation drove him out, beating him 
with staves and throwing clods and stones at him. 
Nor was this the only time that he was kicked out 
of a church with blows or beaten and stoned as he 
passed through the streets. " Let us have him out 
of church," cried a congregation at Tickhill as they 
rushed upon him, and the clerk struck him over the 
face so violently with the Bible that the floor was 
covered with his blood, f 

But still he turned again to face them and preach. 
His leather clothes and stout frame could take these 
things lightly, and his indomitable spirit was aroused 
to fresh exertions. The descriptions we have of his 
contests are his own, and of course he always rep- 
resents himself as coming out at least morally vic- 
torious. 

This strange people and their strange leader were, 
however, a perfectly natural product of the times, 
when men were revolting from the system of the 
Middle Ages, and were driven almost crazy by the 
new-found liberty of the Reformation. It is difficult 
now to realize what a wonderful system priestcraft 
had wrought, and how it had altered, or rather 
almost annihilated, the mental faculties, until men 

* Marsh's Life of Fox, p. 86. f Ibid., p. 92. 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

through long disuse of their brains had become 
mere children. 

In the Middle Ages everything had been absorbed 
into theology and dogma. Artists could paint only 
ecclesiastical pictures, and the skill of architects 
was devoted mainly to cathedrals. The politicians 
were usually priests, and every man's last will and 
testament had to be proved before and his estate 
distributed by a bishop. The domestic relations of 
life were entirely in the hands of the priesthood. 
There was scarcely any physical science, and the 
little there was, was referred to the theologians. If 
it would square with the dogmas, it was right ; if it 
would not square with them, it was wrong. If a 
fact of nature was contrary to a dogma, so much 
the worse for nature. All reasoning was by the 
scholastic method, in which the dogmas of the 
church were taken as a starting-point from which 
you might reason, but to which you must return on 
pain of death. Independent investigation, original 
research, free inquiry were crimes. The dogmatic, 
the miraculous, and the impossible were alone im- 
portant. 

The dogmas had been wrought by the most cun- 
ning human ingenuity into a magnificent system. 
Beginning in the fourth century, when the Bishop of 
Rome began to claim authority as chief bishop or 
pope, the development went steadily on. The wor- 
ship of the Virgin began. Image worship, which 
had been a heresy, was permitted in the seventh 
century. Transubstantiation, which became in the 
end one of the most important doctrines, had not 
78 



THE QUAKERS 

even a name until the eleventh century, and was not 
definitely decreed until 121 5. So also of auricular 
confession, which was decreed the same year. Up 
to the twelfth century there were only two sacra- 
ments. After that there were seven. The celibacy 
of the clergy, which was unsuccessfully attempted 
in the fourth century, was finally made binding in 
the eleventh. 

In addition to all this, miracles were being per- 
formed almost every day, all over Europe, at thou- 
sands of shrines and by thousands of persons, and 
they all had to be believed ; and thousands of saints 
were being created which must be worshipped ; and 
holy rags and bones and pieces of sacred wood, 
capable of curing disease and protecting from dan- 
ger, were being multiplied without number. 

Of the accompaniments of this system we can 
only briefly speak. The most typical, perhaps, was 
witchcraft, for which during the Middle Ages over 
nine million men and women were put to death. 
Other religions have been afflicted with this delu- 
sion, but no religion ever developed it to such 
excess as the Christianity of the Middle Ages. Over 
four thousand books were written on the subject, and 
the methods for detecting and punishing this sup- 
posed crime were as regular and as well recognized 
as our modern systems of police. 

Of the cruelty of that religion most of us have 
heard. We are amazed at the organized system of 
the Inquisition, with its regularly appointed officials 
like a modern corporation or a department of gov- 
ernment. We wonder at the men who studied the 
79 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

human body and the mechanical arts for the purpose 
of producing the greatest amount of suffering ; who 
invented ingenious methods of stretching and crush- 
ing the joints and tearing out the finger-nails ; who 
wrote manuals to guide their successors in detecting 
the smallest theological error and inflicting the 
greatest amount of torture ; and who followed the 
surest routes to agony with the same zeal with which 
men now build easy paths for commerce and de- 
velop steam, electricity, and surgery. 

So Christianity became the most cruel as well as 
the most superstitious religion that has ever pre- 
vailed among men. But the cruel part of it was all 
perfectly logical ; for those people had accepted 
literally and believed absolutely not only the great 
mass of the dogmas, but the dogma which crowned 
the whole and made the system complete, the doc- 
trine of exclusive salvation. By that doctrine, unless 
a man believed all the other dogmas he could not be 
saved. If he refused to give to them the consent 
of his mind, he must burn forever in hell. This was 
the keystone of the arch, and, if it was true, every 
Protestant, dissenter, and heretic deserved instant 
death, and death would be too mild a punishment. 
The men who by their example and encouragement 
would wreck the eternal salvation of others deserved 
not only death, but every kind of torture : to have 
their entrails cut out and burnt before their eyes, 
to be torn asunder while alive by four horses, or 
anything which would make heresy terrible. In 
the face of an eternity of woe for millions the 
anguish of a few hundred counts for nothing ; and 
80 



THE QUAKERS 

thus the Middle Ages and the Inquisition logically 
reasoned. 

We have instances in our own time of what ter- 
rible things men and women will do when they 
really believe their supreme interest is threatened. 
As the irreconcilable conflict between the white 
race and the black in our country becomes more 
and more intense, and with rapidly increasing num- 
bers assails more closely the white man's honor and 
safety, we burn negroes to death at the stake and an 
approving crowd stands by to watch the sizzling 
flesh and the agony, or applaud as strips of skin are 
cut from the victim, just as five hundred years ago 
they stood round the heretic. We resent being told 
that we are back in the Middle Ages. But the 
wicked and mistaken doctrine of putting two irrec- 
oncilable races to live together may become as 
frightful in its results as the mistaken doctrine of an 
infallible church and exclusive salvation. 

We all know the story of the Reformation : 
how the revival of the ancient learning of Greece 
and Rome and the invention of the printing press 
pricked this vast bubble of delusion that had been 
inflated by the efforts of a thousand years ; and 
then Europe seethed and boiled and rocked to and 
fro with the struggles of reform and fanaticism. 

But it was, after all, a slow process extending over 
several hundred years. Even the most ardent re- 
formers could at first get rid of only one dogma at 
a time. Wycliff, the first great leader of the Refor- 
mation, rejected only transubstantiation and kept 
pretty much all the rest. Huss, his successor, at- 

6 8l 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

tacked only the fraudulent miracles of the ecclesias- 
tics and professed to accept all the dogmas, although 
he struck at the root of the whole system by de- 
claring his belief in religious liberty. Luther, who 
appeared a hundred years after Huss, was equally 
conservative. His famous ninety-five propositions 
were aimed only at the sale of indulgences, which at 
that time was carried to great excess. He after- 
wards denied the authority of the Pope, which was 
certainly going a great way. But he clung to many 
dogmas which were rejected by nearly all other 
Protestants. 

The same hesitation to break entirely and sud- 
denly with the past was shown by all the large 
churches or divisions of the Reformation. The 
Church of England, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, 
and the Independents gave up some of the dogmas, 
but clung to the remainder with great determination. 
But the numerous small and badly organized sects 
were always more progressive. Composed largely 
of lower-class people, with nothing to lose by a 
change and unprejudiced by education, many of 
them disposed at once of the whole dogmatic sys- 
tem, and relied entirely on their own thought and 
judgment, and reliance on individual conscience 
and judgment was the test of advancement in the 
Reformation. 

There were a great many of these small sects in 
those days, with curious names long since forgotten. 
Familists, Seekers, Ranters, Pietists, Antinomians, 
Antescripturists, Enthusiasts, Soul Sleepers, Levellers, 
Adamites, Traskites, and Anabaptists were the more 



THE QUAKERS 

important ones which shocked sober people by their 
frantic radicaHsm. 

From the Famihsts, Seekers, Ranters, Baptists, 
and Antinomians the Quakers seem to have been 
largely recruited, and these sects had not a little in- 
fluence in the settlement of the colonies in America. 
Familism, as a doctrine, was more or less prevalent 
among several sects. They held that no forms or 
doctrines were necessary, that as Moses had taught 
the law and Christ faith, so the third and new order 
of things was love. By love and contemplation they 
believed that they could get into direct communica- 
tion with God, and therefore for them all ceremonies 
were useless. Love covered everything, and they 
called themselves The Family of Love. 

The Seekers, like the Familists, had suddenly been 
allowed to read the Scriptures on which all religion 
was supposed to rest, and finding in them no au- 
thority for the doings of the church of the Middle 
Ages, they cut loose from everything. All sacra- 
ments and ordinances, and all church government, 
they said, had been utterly corrupted, and they were 
waiting and seeking for a new revelation. Roger 
Williams, who was banished from Massachusetts 
for heresy, and afterwards founded Rhode Lsland, 
was more or less affiliated with these people. They 
have sometimes been confused with the Familists. 
Penn, in his essay on "The Rise and Progress 
of the People called Quakers," speaks of the two 
sects as in reality one. Both they and the Familists 
are said to have worshipped in silence like the 
Quakers. 

83 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

The Antinomians were very much like the Fami- 
Hsts, and Antinomianism was a general name applied 
to people who relied on inward feeling and convic- 
tion ; had gone back, in fact, to a sort of natural re- 
ligion, and were independent of all dogmas and all 
regularly organized churches. Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, 
who was so severely treated and finally banished from 
Massachusetts, was an Antinomian. Some of her 
followers who fled to Rhode Island became Quakers, 
and among them was Mary Dyer, who was afterwards 
hung for her new faith on Boston Common. Anti- 
nomianism led very directly to Quakerism. 

But these queer sects did not last long, nor were 
they able to attract to themselves for any length of 
time such strong, intelligent, and devoted characters 
as were drawn to the Quakers. The Quakers sup- 
plied all that these sects had and a great deal more 
besides ; and they supplied it in a better way, and 
were better organized. 

The reason the Quakers absorbed the others and 
survived seems to have been because they set forth 
the definite and intelligent plan of returning to primi- 
tive Christianity in its most ancient and simple form. 
To the seekers and others who thought that all re- 
ligion had become hopelessly corrupt, they showed 
that original Christianity was still as pure as ever. 
Let us return, they said, to old Christianity as it 
existed during the first three centuries after the 
time of the apostles, before the Bishop of Rome 
became Pope, and before the great mass of dogma, 
superstition, fraud, and cruelty were developed by 
priestcraft. 

84 



THE QUAKERS 

The Church of England and the Puritans were 
halting half-way in the Reformation. They could 
satisfy the rich and powerful, but they could not 
satisfy the poor, the ordinary, or even the rich who 
had simple spiritual minds. Do not halt, then, said 
the Quakers. Go back all the way, back to the 
simple Christians of the Catacombs, the best and 
greatest of all Christians, who endured such terrible 
martyrdom, who lived such stainless lives, who were 
so affectionate in their famiUes, and who put such 
touching, simple inscriptions on the tombs of their 
dead ; back to these Christians who were nearest to 
the Saviour, who had no system of dogma or the- 
olog}^ no doctrine of the Trinity, no transubstantia- 
tion or infallibility, and no formal creeds ; whose 
religion spread itself not by theology, cruelty, or 
force, but by its own moral superiority, its simple 
spirituality, the Sermon on the Mount, and the 
inward light from Christ. 

So the Quakers became earnest students of the 
fathers of the church, as they are called, those very 
ancient writers, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, 
Cyprian, Eusebius, Origen, and others, who are the 
authorities for our knowledge of the primitive Chris- 
tians, whose opinions are so numerous and so varied 
that they are store-houses of quotations for all sorts 
of religious belief, and who have always been the 
delight of those who explore the original sources 
of Christianity. There the Quakers found full justi- 
fication for their peculiar doctrines. They found 
a spiritual worship free from elaborate ceremony. 
They found that the ministers and preachers received 
85 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

no pay. They found complete freedom of opinion, 
the religious liberty which they longed to see estab- 
lished in England. They found also that some of 
these early Christians were opposed to oaths and 
also to war ; and that they protested against vain 
fashions, corrupting amusements, and flattering titles. 

The Quakers were by no means the first people 
who had uttered this cry for a return to primitive 
Christianity. It had been heard several times dur- 
ing the long night of the Middle Ages, but it was 
quickly smothered by an iron hand. The Albi- 
genses in the south of France in the thirteenth cen- 
tury had been a numerous people and held a very 
pure and simple doctrine somewhat like that of the 
Quakers ; but the armies of Pope Innocent III. 
within a few months slaughtered over two hundred 
thousand of them ; and it is supposed that within a 
period of twenty years more than a million of them 
were put to death. The Waldenses of the Pied- 
mont Valleys, who were a similar people, were also 
hunted down, and men, women, and children suffo- 
cated in their caves or cut to pieces by the soldiers 
of holy church. 

If George Fox and the Quakers had appeared a 
century sooner, they would have been exterminated 
to a man ; for their doctrine was more far-reaching, 
aggressive, and dangerous than the simple faith of 
such people as the Albigenses. But at the time 
the Quakers appeared the principles of the Refor- 
mation had advanced too far to allow of wholesale 
slaughtering. Nevertheless the government and 
sober-minded, religious people were willing to go a 
86 



THE QUAKERS 

long way in suppressing a belief which threatened 
to destroy everything that was conservative in both 
religion and manners. Ordinances were passed 
authorizing the justices of the peace to imprison 
any who should deny the validity of the two sacra- 
ments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, or maintain 
other principles of the Quaker belief. When they 
held their meetings in the street or market-place 
they were arrested for a breach of the peace. They 
were arrested as Sabbath-breakers when travelling 
to their meetings ; and when wandering about in 
their missionary work they were arrested as vagrants 
and whipped. . 

After the restoration their punishments were in- 
creased. Old laws of Henry VIII. 's and Elizabeth's 
reign were applied to them. By these laws, which 
were aimed primarily at Roman Catholics, they 
could be imprisoned as well as lose their property 
for not paying tithes ; and if they refused to attend 
the parish church, they could be fined, imprisoned, 
and finally banished. An act was also passed 
specially naming the Quakers, describing them as 
worse than rebels, and " a terror of the people ;" and 
by this act, if they refused to take an oath, or argued 
or wrote against the practice, or if they held meetings 
among themselves, they could be fined, imprisoned, 
and finally banished. Another act provided that 
for unlawfully assembling they could be convicted 
and sentenced to three or five months' imprisonment 
by a magistrate without trial by jury. The officers 
of the militia and army were authorized to break 
up and disperse such assemblies and capture the 
87 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

leaders ; and the magistrates were authorized in 
executing the act to break into all dwelling-houses 
except the houses of peers of the realm. 

Other acts which were originally intended to be 
used against the meetings of the Presbyterians and 
Independents were executed against the Quakers 
with great severity. These acts gave part of the 
fines to informers, who made it their business to live 
on the spoil and ruin of the Quakers, who lost the 
stock in their shops, and even their household goods 
and bedding, and some, reduced to abject poverty, 
were compelled to sleep on bare boards. 

In the British colonies, the Bermudas, Jamaica, 
and other places similar punishments were inflicted. 
In Massachusetts the punishments were worse than 
in England. The Quakers, men and women, were 
stripped to the waist, tied to a cart's tail, and whipped 
from town to town ; they were whipped with pitched 
ropes, branded in the hand, their ears cut ofi*, and 
four of them, including a woman, were hung. 

All these sufferings in England and other countries 
are described in great detail by the Quaker historians 
Sewell, Gough, Janney, and especially Besse. The 
Quakers were very careful to preserve in writing full 
accounts of all persecutions and sufferings at the 
time of their occurrence. Although they opposed 
learning and the higher education, there seems to 
have been none of the smaller sects that described 
and argued their religion so much in print. In the 
year 1708, as Janney tells us, when they had been 
in existence only about half a century, a catalogue 
of their books, published by John Whiting, contains 



THE QUAKERS 

the names of five hundred and twenty-eight writers, 
and the titles of two thousand eight hundred books 
and tracts. 

In this way they made a deep and powerful im- 
pression on their time, and their liberal views, their 
simple way of stating the Trinity and the divinity of 
Christ, their insistence on the spirituality of Chris- 
tianity as opposed to ecclesiastical forms and dogmas, 
has now long since spread to other religious bodies, 
and is the general belief of modern times. 

They not only took care that all their sufferings 
should be fully recorded and known, but their con- 
duct in never avoiding punishment was unusual. 
The Presbyterians, Independents, Roman Catholics, 
and other dissenting bodies thought it no disgrace, 
when the laws were unusually severe against them, 
to go into hiding, to cease to practise their religion 
for a time, or to hold secret meetings. But the 
Quakers would never hold secret meetings, and it 
was a point of honor with them never to abstain 
from the open performance of their faith, no mat- 
ter how much the magistrates stirred up the laws 
against them. For the cautious conduct of the 
other dissenters they had a supreme contempt, and 
referred to it sarcastically as "Christian prudence." 
A Quaker meeting might be raided by the soldiers 
and constables, and the house demolished, but the 
following Sunday those that remained uncaptured 
would be found holding a meeting on its ruins, 
where they were again an easy prey to the officials. 

This extraordinary stubbornness exasperated the 
authorities against them more than ever, for it was a 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

burden to arrest and imprison so many of them. 
They filled up the jails, and it seemed impossible to 
check them as the other dissenters were checked 
and driven out of sight by punishing a few as 
examples. The Quakers were determined that if 
they were to be suppressed by imprisonment, it 
would be not by examples, but by imprisoning 
every individual Quaker in the country ; and even 
then they would hold meetings in the jails until 
they had all died of dirt and disease. 

The world at first laughed at this impolitic obsti- 
nacy, then wondered at it, and in the end was filled 
with profound respect and admiration for the people 
who lived up to it for nearly forty years. The 
Quakers seem to have been built up into their un- 
usually strong position largely by this heroic prin- 
ciple of conduct. It was, indeed, a thoroughly 
Anglo-Saxon trait, and could have been exhibited 
by no other race. 

The punishments in England, beginning with the 
Commonwealth times, were persisted in until 1672, 
when Charles II., by proclamation, suspended the 
execution of all penal laws against dissenters, and 
released from prison about four hundred Quakers. 
But this relief lasted only for about a year. In 
1673 the informers returned to their business, and 
the prisons were again filled until James II. came to 
the throne in 1685. He released some thirteen 
hundred Quakers who were then in prison, and 
stopped the suits which were then in progress to fine 
or imprison several hundred more. In 1687 he 
issued his famous " Declaration of Indulgence," by 
90 



THE QUAKERS 

which, like Charles II., he suspended all the penal 
laws against dissenters. But this raised a great 
constitutional question of his right to suspend any 
laws, a question in which William Penn took, as we 
shaJl see, an important part. 

There was, however, no more persecution of 
Quakers. It had practically ceased during the reign 
of King James. But the Quakers were not legally 
secured in their rights until 1688, the first year of 
the reign of William III., when the act was passed 
abolishing all penalties against Protestants and estab- 
lishing the religious liberty which has since prevailed 
in England. 

For a period of almost forty years from the time 
of the civil war until the reign of James II., the 
Quakers had been harried and punished, thousands 
of them despoiled of their property, thousands of 
them confined in the loathsome prisons of that age ; 
and about five thousand, as Penn estimated, died 
of disease from confinement in those prisons. This 
severity accomplished in part, no doubt, its pur- 
pose : somewhat lessened their numbers, and kept 
their belief from spreading as far as it might have 
gone. But it utterly failed to suppress them. They 
endured those forty years of suffering, increased in 
numbers, won the respect of the world by their 
heroism, developed their doctrine, discipline, and 
organization, and their faith spread from the lower 
to the middle classes. 

Their eccentricities of conduct, their bottle-break- 
ing, brimstone-burning, and street-preaching passed 
away. They became a sedate, sober, thrifty people, 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

of most exemplary lives, and most earnest in all 
good works. They were leaders in the most ad- 
vanced philanthropic movements of the age. Be- 
sides their persistent and sincere advocacy of religious 
liberty, they were the first advocates of the abolition 
of negro slavery, and they never faltered in their 
purpose until slavery had ceased to exist in the 
British possessions and in the United States. 

They were the first prison reformers, a work sug- 
gested to them by the experience and sufferings of 
their own people amid the horrors of the English 
prisons of the seventeenth century. Men, women, 
and children were crowded together in these prisons 
mingled with the vilest and most degraded criminals, 
twenty or more of them sleeping together in one 
room, damp, cold, and indescribably filthy. The 
Quakers aroused public sentiment first to alleviate, 
and then to change this condition. They started 
the idea that a prison should be a workhouse, and 
many of the early Quakers when imprisoned fol- 
lowed their trades of shoemaking or tailoring as far 
as circumstances would allow. They established, 
also, the principle that a prison should be a reforma- 
tory, a place of moral improvement instead of a 
punishment by dirt and disease, and deeper moral 
degradation than could be found outside of its 
walls. 

In connection with their work of prison reform, 
they opposed the indiscriminate manner in which 
the death penalty was inflicted for minor offences. 
In England at that time death was the punishment 
for over two hundred and fifty crimes. The Quakers 



THE QUAKERS 

argued in favor of reducing the number to two, — 
murder and treason, — and wished even to aboHsh 
capital punishment altogether. 

Although in their origin, and for a long time 
afterwards, they were opposed to higher education, 
colleges, and learning, they have in modern times 
greatly changed in this respect, especially in Penn- 
sylvania, where the Philadelphia Quakers have made 
most successful efforts in the best sort of education, 
as their colleges at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and 
Swarthmore clearly prove. They have interested 
themselves in the education of women, and also in 
women's rights, which is the natural out-growth of 
the liberty always allowed by them to women in 
preaching and in the conduct of church affairs. 

It is no doubt true that, although they have 
engaged in all these liberal movements, they have 
been narrow in their views, and have gone about 
their work in a narrow way. Their long oppo- 
sition to higher education would easily account for 
this. Nevertheless, it is also true that they have 
produced some very remarkable and very broad- 
minded men. William Penn and John Bright are 
the most noticeable instances in England ; and in 
America the list is a long one : Benjamin West, one 
of the best artists of his time ; John Bartram, the 
first American botanist ; two of our best poets, 
Whittier and Bayard Taylor; John Dickinson, the 
author of the "Farmer's Letters in the Revolution ;" 
two of the ablest generals of the Revolution, Greene 
and Mifflin ; and Edward Cope, a modern Philadel- 
phian of much eminence in science. There should 
93 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

also be added to the list Ezra Cornell, who founded 
the great university in New York which bears his 
name ; and Lindley Murray, the grammarian. 

The Quaker belief, although opposed to the higher 
learning and open to the charge of narrowness, and 
in its early stages to the charge of eccentricity, was 
nevertheless a rationalistic movement. Lecky has 
described it as a distorted rationalism. It was an 
heroic attempt to reform, advance, and liberalize the 
age. It was the last great wave or impulse of the 
Reformation, a violent and one might say an hys- 
terical effort to return to the primitive Christianity 
of the first two centuries. In its day it possessed 
great attractions for honest minds like William Penn 
or Robert Barclay, who, as college-bred men, were 
weary of seeing education prostituted to the service 
of tyranny, superstition, and fraud ; who wished to 
see religion totally divorced from politics as well as 
from priestcraft, and established on a permanent 
basis of civil and religious liberty. 



VI 

CAVALIER OR QUAKER ; OR BOTH 

But whatever we may think of the Quakers after 
an impartial survey of their whole career, there is 
no doubt that in the year 1661 they were generally 
regarded as a despised, eccentric, street- and field- 
preaching, wandering sect, continually punished by 
fine and imprisonment under the law. What could 
there be in such people that would attract to them 
William Penn, a youth of the upper class enjoying 
his athletic sports and studies at an upper-class 
Church of England college? The only answer 
would seem to be that the boy was born with a 
certain sincere earnestness, a serious-mindedness, 
and a natural inclination for religion. There was 
also evidently in his nature a strong basis of hero- 
ism, which he had gained, no doubt, by inheritance. 
It cost him but litde effort to dare to follow the 
leading of his powerful and, indeed, passionate re- 
ligious feeling. 

He had never, so far as can be discovered, been 
under the dominion of much dogma. His associ- 
ations in his boyhood's home at Wanstead had, as 
we have already said, been Puritan. He was already 
inclined to rely on his own inward convictions ; and 
sincere and earnest as he was, and disposed to take 
95 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

religion literally, he found something congenial 
among the people who relied more than any others 
on inward feeling and conviction as against dogmas 
and ceremonies. Before long he also discovered 
that for an educated mind the suggestion of return- 
ing to primitive Christianity was a grand and fruitful 
thought. Among the primitive Christians of the 
first three centuries could be found liberty and a 
multitude of inspiring philosophic and religious ideas. 
On these the intellect and moral nature could freely 
exercise themselves without the degradation of feel- 
ing that they were being prostituted in the service 
of priestly humbug and superstition. 

He wandered unconsciously into this influence 
which was destined to seize him sooner or later. 
The Quakers had already been up and down in 
Oxford, and not a few students had succumbed. 
But it was the preaching of Thomas Loe, to whom 
he one day accidentally listened, that touched Penn. 
He and some other undergraduates abandoned the 
chapel services of the colleges and went to hear the 
Quakers ; and it has even been said that they held 
private prayer-meetings among themselves. For this 
neglect of the college chapel services they had to 
pay fines ; but, nothing deterred, they went still fur- 
ther, and there is a tradition that Penn and Robert 
Spencer, afterwards Lord Sunderland, in their hatred 
of outward forms, "fell upon those students who 
appeared in surplices, and he and they together tore 
them everywhere over their heads." 

From a letter written by Penn in 1683 to Lord 
Sunderland, it appears that they first made each 
96 



CAVALIER OR QUAKER; OR BOTH 

other's acquaintance in France in 1663, after Penn 
had left Oxford, so that the tradition associating them 
as companions in the attack on the surplices may be 
wrong. But it is extremely probable that Penn 
took some pronounced part in that general opposi- 
tion to the surplices which prevailed among the 
students ; for we hear that he was expelled from the 
college for some conduct relating to his religious 
opinions. This expulsion has been doubted by his 
biographer, Stoughton ; but Penn himself, in speak- 
ing of his early religious life, said, " Of my persecu- 
tion at Oxford, and how the Lord sustained me in 
the midst of that hellish darkness and debauchery ; 
of my being banished the college." * 

It is difficult to tell whether this word banished 
means that he was suspended, as it would now be 
called, for a time or expelled ; but it probably 
means expelled. He seems to have been at Christ 
Church about two years, and this banishment brought 
his course there to an end. Apparently he did not 
altogether neglect the studies that were proper for 
a cavalier, and although he seems to have been a 
serious-minded undergraduate protesting against col- 
legiate debauchery, and more and more imbued 
with Quaker influence, he did not reach the point 
of actually joining the sect. From entries in Pepys's 
diary, the admiral seems to have had thoughts of 
removing his son to Cambridge, but whether for the 
purpose of breaking up his Quaker notions is not 
clear. 

* Journey into Holland and Germany (Life prefixed to Works), 
p. 92. 

7 97 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

When, however, Penn finally left Oxford and re- 
turned to his father in London, the admiral was 
greatly vexed at the state of the young man's feel- 
ings. He went wandering about the city, looking 
up Quakers and consorting with them ; and he ap- 
peared to have no taste for the court and a cavalier's 
life. From that time the struggle between father 
and son reads like a comedy. The father, we are 
told, tried persuasions and threats, and when these 
proved of no avail, resorted to blows, which also 
failing of their purpose, he fell into a transport of 
rage and drove the boy from his house, to which, 
however, he was afterwards enabled to return by the 
intercession of his mother.* 

This account has been described by Stoughton 
and also by Granville Penn as traditional and very 
much exaggerated. But Penn himself, in his " Jour- 
ney into Holland and Germany," after speaking of 
his banishment from college, adds, " The bitter 
usage I underwent when I returned to my father, 
whipping, beating, and turning out of doors in 
1662." 

The violence and turning out of doors proving as 
unsuccessful as the banishment from college, a rather 
lucky thought occurred to the admiral. He would 
divert the boy's mind by things which were unlike 
religion. So he sent him with some gay people of 
the court to travel in France in the hope that he 
would pick up something besides fanaticism. 

This hope seems to have been partly realized. 

* Gough, History of the Quakers, vol. ii. p. 214. 



CAVALIER OR QUAKER; OR BOTH 

He visited Italy as well as France, and Pepys de- 
scribes him in August, 1664, soon after his return. 

" This day my wife tells me Mr Pen, Sir William's son, is come 
back from France and came to visit her. A most modish person 
grown, she says, a fine gentleman." (Vol iv. jip. 228, 229.) 

" After dinner comes Mr. Pen to visit me, and staid an houre talk- 
ing with me. I perceive something of learning he hath got, but .a 
great deal if not too much of the vanity of the French garbe and 
affected manner of speech and gait. I fear all real profit he hath 
made of his travel will signify little." (Vol. iv. p. 231.) 

Penn at this time was no doubt a fresh-faced 
young Englishman of considerable attractiveness ; 
with much manner and conversation, and capable 
as the French would say of "success with women." 
He found Mrs. Pepys' s society so agreeable that 
Pepys became very jealous. 

" Against my will left them together, but God knows without any 
reason of fear in my conscience of any evil between them, but such 
is my natural folly." (Vol. iv. p. 243. See also p. 236.) 

A hardened old rascal like Pepys, who was con- 
tinually making love to other men's wives, was 
naturally very suspicious. But nothing came of it, 
and he afterwards speaks of young Penn as very 
merry talking of his travels and French humors. 

From a letter of P. Gibson we learn what was 
part of Penn's new French garb. " I remember your 
honor very well," Gibson writes, "when you newly 
came out of France and wore pantaloon breeches." 

Penn had, in fact, become what we would now 

call a Franco-maniac. He spoke French fluently, 

and the admiral was very much pleased with his 

polite and courtly behavior. We read also that he 

99 

LofC. 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

fought with a desperado in the streets of Paris, and 
was skilful enough in fencing to knock his opponent's 
sword from his hand. But he declined to stab to 
death his disarmed enemy, as he had a right to do 
under the code. He had without doubt become a 
good deal of a cavalier ; and this quality he retained 
all his life. But, strange to say, while travelling in 
France he went to the Protestant college at Sau- 
mur, where for a few months he studied theology 
under Moses Amyrault, a famous divine of that time. 
Whatever qualities the father might add to his char- 
acter, the boy was evidently determined to follow his 
own religious bent. 

The doctrine taught by Amyrault was a sort of 
modified and liberal Calvinism, deemed rank heresy 
by many Calvinists. But Penn seems to have been 
unaffected by it. He studied general theological 
history, and apparently for the purpose of giving 
himself a more enlightened understanding of the 
whole subject of religion. He studied particularly 
the writings of the early fathers of the church, that 
he might the better understand that primitive Chris- 
tianity which the Quakers professed, and which was 
always uppermost in his thoughts. He was trying 
to see in the Quakerism by which his ardent young 
heart was touched something deeper and broader 
than the eccentricities which aroused so much hatred 
and punishment. He was looking for a religion 
which an honest educated gentleman could follow 
without being a sycophantic Churchman, a shuffling, 
traitorous Roman Catholic, or a whining, malignant 
Puritan. 



CAVALIER OR QUAKER; OR BOTH 

He seems to have always looked at the new faith 
in a very different light from that which inspired the 
rugged unlettered Fox, and it is impossible to find 
in Penn any of Fox's visions, miracles, or fanaticism. 
Penn wrote largely against oaths ; but very little on 
hat honor or on what now seems the lighter and 
least important part of Quaker doctrine. He was 
trying to build on larger foundations and with more 
substantial and lasting material. 

But he had not yet joined the Quakers. It seems 
probable that he was not yet altogether satisfied 
with them. Judging from what he afterwards re- 
lated of himself, he was unable at this time to find 
any form of religion that fully satisfied him. He 
had become a Seeker. But he went on investi- 
gating, and for one so young he investigated with 
considerable thoroughness. 

Soon after his return from France his father went 
with the Duke of York to fight the Dutch, and 
Penn meantime had been entered a student at Lin- 
coln's Inn to study law. This was in continuation 
of the father's careful plan of education. His son, 
who was to become a courtier and public man, and 
possibly hold an important office under the crown, 
must have some general idea of law. So young 
Penn, who had been to college at Oxford, studied 
theology in France, and travelled through a large 
part of Europe, was now to be further broadened by 
another study. It will be interesting to see how 
a man trained in this way will view the struggling 
Quaker faith. 

The plague which broke out in London inter- 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

rupted the law studies, and Penn, like many others 
who could escape from the city, retired to the 
country. The cavalier side of his character seems 
to have found little employment in the silence of the 
fields, and, as he afterwards related, the scenes of the 
plague had made a serious impression on him. His 
contemplative and religious mood began to get the 
upper hand again ; and when his father returned he 
saw evident signs of a bad relapse. 

He thought he would try again the remedy that 
had already been successful with this disease. He 
sent the youth to join the Duke of Ormond, who, 
as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, kept at Dublin a 
court of no little gayety and splendor. A remedy 
often used, however, is apt to lose its power ; and 
it seems this second dose of gayety was not ac- 
complishing all that was expected. A variation of 
it was tried, which came very near being entirely 
successful. 

The youth was given some serious worldly work 
to do. The admiral was governor of Kinsale, in the 
county of Cork, far to the south from Dublin, and 
close to that famous headland still a guide to sailors, 
and still known as the "Old Head of Kinsale." 
There was a fort within it and a company of sol- 
diers, of which the admiral was nominal captain, in 
much the same way that he was governor of Kinsale, 
this being one of those posts of profit, honor, and 
very little trouble which he held by favor of the 
crown, and constituted part of his Irish estates. He 
gave his son some sort of oversight of this feudal 
holding and the district round it, and the young 

I02 



CAVALIER OR QUAKER; OR BOTH 

man seems also to have held an office called " clerk 
of the cheque, Kinsale." But in these positions he 
was still under the command of the Duke of Or- 
mond as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 

The responsibility and interest of his new occupa- 
tions, the pleasure of doing real work in the world, 
drew his mind so far from his religious studies that 
when a mutiny broke out among the troops at Car- 
rickfergus he took a vigorous part in quelling it. 
The Duke of Ormond was so pleased with his con- 
duct that he suggested that he be made captain of 
his father's company of soldiers. 

Judging from the letter written by the duke, it 
seems that the father himself had at one time 
thought of this. Young Penn seems to have been 
eager for it. But the father's answer implies that 
he thought his son's vanity had become inflated 
with success, and that he was too young for such a 
command. "As to the tender made by his grace 
the lord lieutenant," he says, " concerning the fort 
at Kinsale, I wish your youthful desires mayn't out- 
run your discretion." 

It was at this time that the armor portrait of Penn 
already described in the first chapter is supposed to 
have been painted. Public business and the acci- 
dental arousing of the fighting qualities he had in- 
herited from his father were drawing him very de- 
cidedly away from religion. "The glory of the 
world," he afterwards said, "overtook me, and I was 
even ready to give myself unto it." If his father 
had yielded on that one point, and let him be captain 
of the company, the result might have been perma- 
103 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

nent, and there would be no necessity for writing this 
biography. 

But one day Penn went to Cork on business, and 
hearing that his old friend, Thomas Loe, whom he 
had known at Oxford, was to preach, he went to 
hear him. The burden of the sermon was, "There 
is a faith which overcomes the world, and there is a 
faith which is overcome by the world," and Penn 
was deeply moved. His faith was evidently being 
overcome by the world. We can readily imagine 
how the fighting spirit, which had been so recently 
aroused within him, would now combine with his 
natural religious fervor and carry him completely 
away. Should he overcome or be overcome. The 
fire in his blood would admit of only one answer. 
The doctrine struck home, and Penn never again 
vacillated. From that day he was a Quaker. 

The methods used by his father had, however, 
gone so far that the young man's character had been 
partially formed by them. He was double. He was 
both a cavalier and a Quaker. He became a recog- 
nized leader and preacher, the author of numerous 
theological works, and at the same time he passed 
a large part of his days at court, would dress hand- 
somely on occasions, could be gay and jovial, and 
took part in politics and other things somewhat in- 
consistent with what is supposed to be Quaker doc- 
trine. So much was this side of his character de- 
veloped that in spite of his great abilities his sect 
were at the time of the revolution of 1688 a little 
inclined to dispense with his services. 

This double nature was at the same time his 
104 



CAVALIER OR QUAKER; OR BOTH 

strength and his weakness. His father had been 
double in pohtics, belonging first to the Roundheads 
and then to the Royalists. The son belonged both 
to the world and to religion, not to one after the 
other, but to both at the same time, and seems to 
have been perfectly sincere in both. He became 
that apparently impossible combination, a Quaker 
courtier, and that is the key to his character. 

It will be well at this point to quote the whole of 
the passage from his "Journey into Holland and 
Germany," already several times referred to, in which 
he sums up the religious history of his youth. 

" I let them know how and when the Lord first appeared unto me, 
which was about the twelfth year of my age, anno. 1656; and 
how, at times, betwixt that and the fifteenth, the Lord visited me, 
and the divine impressions he gave me of himself ; of my perse- 
cution at Oxford, and how the Lord sustained me in the midst of 
that hellish darkness and debauchery ; of my being banished the 
college ; the bitter usage I underwent when I returned to my father, 
whipping, beating, and turning out of doors in 1662. Of the 
Lord's dealings with me in France, and in the time of the great 
plague in London ; in fine, the deep sense he gave me of the vanity 
of this world, of the irreligiousness of the religious of it; then, of 
my mournful and bitter cries to him that he would show me his own 
way of life and salvation, and my resolution to follow him, whatever 
reproaches of suffering should attend me, and that with great rev- 
erence and brokeness of spirit. How, after all this, the glory of the 
world overtook me, and I was even ready to give up myself unto it, 
seeing as yet no such thing as the primitive spirit and church on the 
earth; and being ready to faint concerning my hope of the resti- 
tution of all things." (Life prefixed to Works (1726), p. 92.) 

The last part of this passage shows that in Penn's 
studies and thoughts in his youth the struggle was 
principally to find the original spirit and essential of 
Christianity, or as he puts it " the primitive spirit 

105 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

and church." For this purpose the young man had 
sat in Quaker meetings and studied at Saumur, in 
France, without being influenced by French Gal- 
vanism. It is also evident that in his early ex- 
periences he belonged to that class of persons who 
were then called Seekers, who believed that all forms 
of Christianity were so corrupted as to be invalid, 
and that a new revelation must be awaited ; for 
he speaks of his deep sense of the " irreligiousness 
of the religious," and of his inability to find any 
" such thing as the primitive spirit and church on 
the earth." 



VII 

FIRST IMPRISONMENT AND ROUGHNESS OF ENGLISH 
LIFE 

But after all his studies and experiences, his stu- 
dent life at Oxford, his travels in France and Italy, 
his investigations of the early fathers under the great 
professor at Saumur, his intercourse with gay people 
in Europe, in London, and with the Duke of Ormond 
in Ireland, his public employment on his father's 
feudal holding at Kinsale, — after all this, and after 
doubting whether there was any true or valid church 
on earth, and after considerable knowledge of Quaker 
meetings, Penn made the final decision that those 
Quakers were sufficiently near to primitive Chris- 
tianity to justify his sacrificing himself in the cause 
which they had at heart. 

He remained in Ireland attending to his father's 
affairs, making no change in his life or even in his 
cavalier dress ; but he attended the Quaker meetings 
in Cork. Very soon, as might be expected, he was 
caught in one of those raids which were constantly 
made on the Quakers. Several constables, backed 
by a party of soldiers, entered the meeting where he 
was, September 3, 1667, and arrested everybody on 
the old charge of holding a riotous assembly. There 
is an apocryphal story that a soldier first entered the 
meeting to disturb it, on which Penn took him by 
107 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

the collar and would have thrown him down-stairs 
if some prominent members had not interfered on 
the plea that such conduct would be inconsistent 
with the principles of their religion. 

But we can safely reject this along with the other 
tales in the Harvey manuscript. Penn had too much 
sense to be guilty of such foolishness. He went 
with the others before the mayor, who, observing his 
dress, offered to release him on bond for his good 
behavior. This he refused, and argued with the 
mayor on the unlawfulness of arresting peaceable 
people under a statute which was intended only to 
suppress the Fifth Monarchy murderers. He was 
sent to prison, and there addressed an admirable 
letter to the Earl of Orrery, Lord-President of Mun- 
ster, asking to be released. He argued with great 
dignity and spirit on the unlawfulness of his arrest, 
and the bad policy of such interference with people's 
religious convictions. 

" But I presume, my Lord, the acquaintance you have had with 
other countries, must needs have furnished you with this infallible 
observation : that diversities of faith and worship contribute not to 
the disturbance of any place, where moral uniformity is barely requi- 
site to preserve the peace. It is not long since you were a good 
solicitor for the liberty I now crave, and concluded no way so effectual 
to improve or advantage this country, as to dispense with freedom in 
things relating to conscience ; and I suppose were it riotous or 
tumultuary, as by some vainly imagined, your lordship's inclination, 
as well as duty, would entertain a very remote opinion. My humble 
supplication, therefore, to you is, that so malicious and injurious a 
practice to innocent Englishmen, may not receive any countenance 
or encouragement from your lordship, for as it is contrary to the prac- 
tice elsewhere, and a bad argument to invite English hither, so, with 
submission, will it not resemble that clemency and English spirit, 
that hath hitherto made you honorable." 
1 08 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT 

It was an excellent letter for a youth of twenty- 
three. But what a scrape he was in ! What a talk 
and scandal there must have been among the grand 
people of the Duke of Ormond's court at Dublin 
when it was known that their late companion, young 
Penn, the son of the admiral, with all his fine clothes 
on, was caught by the soldiers in a Quaker meeting ! 
It would have been better to have been caught in a 
brothel or the lowest den of vice. 

To save him, if possible, from such associations 
as he had fallen into, the Earl of Orrery at once re- 
leased him, and often afterwards Penn was gently 
handled by the government because he was a cava- 
lier, and cavaliers could not bear to see him de- 
graded. 

The admiral began to hear of these things, and 
ordered his son home. He promptly appeared, and 
as there was no change in his dress or outward ap- 
pearance for some time nothing was said. Pepys 
heard of his return from that voluble gossip Mrs. 
Turner. 

" At night comes Mrs. Turner to see us ; and then among other 
talk she tells me that Mr William Pen who is lately come over from 
Ireland is a Quaker again, or some very melancholy thing; that he 
cares for no company, nor comes into any ; which is a pleasant thing 
after his being abroad so long and his father such a hypocritical 
rogue and at this time an atheist." (Vol. vii. p. 253.) 

Before long, however, the admiral noticed that 
his son always kept his hat on, at that time a serious 
disrespect to a parent. An explanation was de- 
manded, and Penn openly declared his principles, 
and announced that nothing would now restrain him 
109 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

from remaining a Quaker. Entreaties again proving 
of no avail, the admiral asked if he would not at 
least take off his hat in the presence of his father, 
the king, and the Duke of York. 

Such an offer of compromise on the part of the 
admiral was unusual, and must have been the result 
of many days' controversy with his son. Beaten at 
every point, the distressed father at last pathetically 
pleaded for the respect due to himself and to the 
two persons, the king and the Duke of York, on 
whom the family fortunes depended. He thought 
he could at least secure this ; and, indeed, his unruly 
young Quaker yielded so far as to say that he would 
take time to consider. 

This infuriated the father, because he thought his 
son was going off to consult the Quakers. But 
Penn replied that he would consult with none of 
them, and before long, after much inward conflict, 
respectfully told his father that he could not comply 
with his request. 

The admiral was again in a rage, and turned his 
son out of doors. Penn wandered about, living at 
the houses of friends and supplied secretly by his 
mother with money. The admiral, of course, had to 
relent. He allowed his son to come home to live ; 
but treated him almost as a stranger. 

Penn was now to begin his life's work in earnest ; 
and it may be well to consider what England was 
at this time, its ideals and its manners. It was 
very different from the England which we see to- 
day on our summer holiday trips across the Atlantic. 
Instead of the present population of thirty million, 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT 

it had scarcely five million, hardly as much as the 
present population of Pennsylvania. London, in- 
stead of containing over four million people, had 
only about five hundred thousand, and was only a 
trifle larger than the modern Boston or Baltimore. 
The five million people were gathered in the south- 
ern part of the island, south of a line drawn across 
the country from Liverpool to the Humber River. 
North of this line to the Scottish border was a 
wilderness where the Scotch pillaged and marauded 
and the mosstroopers stole cattle, where the scat- 
tered inhabitants lived in a state of barbarism with 
their blood-hounds to track robbers, and, like the 
early settlers of the American wilderness, adminis- 
tered swift and sure justice on horse-thieves. 

Even south of this wilderness, where most of the 
people were to be found, the face of the country 
was wild. There were vast forests and moors cov- 
ered with furze. A great deal of the country was 
overflowed, and this fen land, which has now been 
neary all drained, was the home of immense quanti- 
ties of wild-fowl. The country people lived on 
widely scattered rude farms, with occasional baronial 
castles. One entered this rough, wild country as 
soon as he left the outskirts of a village or town ; 
and you would have looked in vain at that time for 
the highly cultivated land, the trim farms, and country 
places, with their green hedge-rows and fat cattle, 
which the modern railway tourist now passes in such 
endless succession. 

In fact, the English people of that day lived al- 
most as much in the wilderness and as close to wild 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

nature as those who had emigrated to America. On 
any of the great highways of travel every one, as 
night came on, hastened to reach an inn, for there 
was no road that was free from highwaymen. 
Evelyn, in going from Tunbridge Wells to London, 
was waylaid and left bound in a solitary place tor- 
mented by the blazing sun and the swarms of flies 
and ants. His account of his capture and escape 
reads like the tales of similar adventures at the same 
period among the Indians in America. 

Within a couple of hours' drive of London, great 
herds of fallow-deer ranged through the forests ; 
and within a couple of days' journey could be found 
the magnificent red deer, almost as large as an 
American elk, and wandering in herds that some- 
times numbered five hundred. The wild bull with 
a white mane wandered in the woods of the more 
remote districts. On the open downs bustards, a 
bird as large as the American wild turkey, roamed 
in large flocks and were hunted with greyhounds. 
Fox-hunting had not then become the national 
sport ; and the fox, instead of being carefully pre- 
served, was slaughtered by hundreds as a pest. The 
wild boars, which had been very numerous and were 
preserved for the sport of the king and nobility, 
were exterminated by the farmers during the civil 
war. 

Nor had England then become famous for her 
breeds of horses and cattle. The native horses were 
small and cheap. The best for the saddle were im- 
ported from Spain, and those used for draught were 
brought from Flanders. As these heavy Flemish 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT 

mares drew the great lumbering coaches through the 
narrow streets of London, splashing the offal and filth 
of the kennel on every side, pedestrians rushed to 
the wall and turned their backs. At night those 
same streets were unlighted, and one might very 
well have been safer on the country roads. Thieves 
and footpads might be met at any turn, or roistering 
young fellows who had started out to beat the watch, 
upset sedan chairs, and insult women. If these 
dangers were escaped, one might still at any moment 
receive the contents of a bucket emptied from a 
garret window. 

We should naturally expect that the dress of the 
people would conform to their surroundings, or be 
of color that would least show the accidents through 
which they might have passed. But, on the contraiy, 
they travelled their rough roads, during half the year 
almost impassable with mud, ran the gauntlet of 
highwaymen or the showers of filth in London's 
streets in most fantastic clothes of scarlet, blue, and 
yellow, with feathers in their hats. "I saw," says 
Pepys, " the King, the Dukes and all their attend- 
ants go forth in the rain to the City and it bedraggled 
many a fine suit of clothes." * Pepys's description 
of his clothes, with the long list of their now mean- 
ingless names, and the way in which he developed 
his costume with his increasing prosperity, seems 
ludicrous enough now, but was an important matter 
with him. 

All sorts of fashions broke out among them. 



*• Pepys's Diary, ed. of 1893, vol. i 
113 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

French clothes became an extravagant tyranny 
which Charles II. determined to break ; and as 
clothes were then as important as politics, he an- 
nounced his resolution to his council. He would 
start a new and modest fashion which should never 
be altered : " a long cassock, close to the body, of 
black cloth, and pinked with white silk under it, and 
a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with black riband 
like a pigeon's leg." But Louis XIV. and the 
French nobility, to check this revolt against the su- 
premacy of their nation, put their footmen in the 
new costume. It became a livery, and no English 
gentleman dare wear it. 

These gay people, with their embroidered and 
velvet coats, fringed gloves, camlet cloaks, gold and 
silver buttons, and huge wigs, which were bedraggled 
in the rain and mud of London, were not so partic- 
ular when they went to bed. Night-clothes were 
not usually worn, and people went to bed stark 
naked. Possibly some of the upper classes may 
have worn night-clothes, for we read in Pepys's 
diary and other books of the time that it was a 
recognized custom for ladies while in bed to receive 
visitors of both sexes, as well as to receive visits while 
they were dressing ; and the same custom prevailed 
in France. 

It is needless to say that the language habitually 
used to ladies by the cavaliers was of a plain-spoken 
coarseness and licentiousness that has long since 
passed away ; and the ladies in their turn sang songs 
and made jests which would now in the lowest va- 
riety theatre be instantly suppressed by the police. 
114 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT 

There were, of course, exceptions. There were 
ladies and cavaliers who protested against habitual 
swearing and obscenity, and lived up to their pro- 
tests. If we can believe his word, William Penn 
was one of these. Once, when he was imprisoned 
in the Tower, Sir John Robinson taunted him with 
having been as free in speech and morals before he 
turned Quaker as any other cavalier. 

" When and where ?" said Penn. " I charge thee to tell the com- 
pany to my face." 

" Abroad and at home, too," said Sir John. 

" No, no, Sir John," broke in some one who was present, " that 
is too much." 

" I make this bold challenge," said Penn, " to all men, women, 
and children upon earth, justly to accuse me of ever having seen me 
drunk, heard me swear, utter a curse, or speak one obscene word 
(much less that I ever made it my practice). I speak this to God's 
glory, that has ever preserved me from the power of those pollutions, 
and that from a child begat an hatred in me towards them. But 
there is nothing more common than when men are of a more severe 
life than ordinary, for loose persons to comfort themselves with the 
conceit that ' they were once as they are.' " 

The theatre of those days, of course, reflected in 
public the license that was so freely allowed in pri- 
vate life. The play-writers could produce nothing 
much but obscenity ; and no plays of any literary 
merit were written. It was a sad change since 
Shakespeare's days, when English minds, youthful 
and ardent and full of beautiful fancies, enjoyed 
"The Tempest" and " Midsummer Night's Dream," 
the noble melancholy of Hamlet, the jolly "Taming 
of the Shrew," or the grand tragedies of Macbeth 
and Csesar. They were chivalrous, generous, like 
Raleigh, dreaming of tender love or brilliant enter- 
"5 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

prise ; they sailed the seas for the glory of adven- 
ture and to see undiscovered lands. But now every- 
thing was turned to dirt, sordidness, and corrup- 
tion. 

Charles IL admitted to his presence as an amusing 
character Blood, the assassin, who had attempted the 
lives of the Duke of Ormond and the keeper of the 
Tower. Most of us are familiar with the old stoiy, 
" how at a ball at court, a child was dropped by one 
of the ladies in dancing." They carried it off in a 
handkerchief, " and the king had it in his closet a 
week after, and did dissect it, making great sport of 
it." His lords and ladies danced together naked, or 
smeared one another's faces with candle-grease and 
soot till they looked like devils. The Duke of York 
gets Lord Clarendon's daughter with child, and Clar- 
endon willingly declares his daughter a strumpet, so 
that the duke need not think of marrying her, and 
Sir Charles Berkeley, to help the matter out, swore he 
had been with her, and for this he was given a pension 
and made Earl of Falmouth. And Pepys bluntly 
tells us how the duke " hath come out of his wife's 
bed and gone to others laid in bed for him." These, 
we must remember, were Penn's friends at court, the 
men on whom he relied to help him protect the 
Quakers and retain his vast province of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

It would be easy to fill many pages with instances 
of the rough manners of all classes. A man was 
thought none the less of if in a public place he seized 
some buxom woman and kissed her. Pepys relates 
several instances of kissing ladies in sport when 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT 

dining at a tavern ; and people of quality of that 
time were constantly going out to dine together at 
the taverns. The cavaliers were outrageous in these 
matters. The king, Pepys says, would get Mrs. 
Stewart in a corner and hug and kiss her for half an 
hour "to the observation of all the world." 

But the most shocking ruggedness was the way in 
which everybody went to see executions ; a custom 
which is apparently beginning to be restored with us 
at our negro burnings. And such executions ! 
Hanging and beheading were not enough, and failed 
to satisfy the crowd. When Strafford was executed, 
the people complained that he had not been cut 
open and compelled to see his entrails burning be- 
fore his eyes. In the descriptions of these scenes, 
written by men of the time, it is difficult to find 
a single word revealing the slightest abhorrence or 
pity. 

" I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major General Harrison 
hanged drawn and quartered ; which was done there, he looking as 
cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently- 
cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there 
were great shouts of joy." (Pepys's Diary, ed. of 1893, vol. i. p. 260.) 

But we must not suppose that because these 
people were rough and cruel, that some of them had 
not elevated sentiments and amusements, and many 
of the best amenities of life, like the men of the 
previous century, when Elizabeth was queen. In 
spite of the devilish doings of the cavaliers, there 
were many who enjoyed art, literature, and music. 
Men like Evelyn and Locke were striving to im- 
prove every means of life and thought. Others 
117 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

were struggling with the beginnings of modern 
science. They had for their contemporary the noble 
author of *' Paradise Lost ;" and Dryden, Waller, 
Cowley, and Butler were writing the verse which 
after the lapse of over two hundred years has still 
the power to charm us. It would be as great a 
mistake to suppose them completely lacking in no- 
bility of life as to suppose that we ourselves are 
altogether lacking because we burn negroes to death 
at the stake and have more unpunished murders and 
assassinations than have ever before been known in 
history. 

The people of Penn's time seem to have had a 
strong taste for music, and there was a great deal of 
playing on flutes, viols, and harps, and singing of 
songs. Pepys often speaks of his song-book as one 
of his most treasured volumes. He solaced himself 
with music almost every evening. He sometimes 
carried his flute in his pocket, and when travelling in 
Holland played in the stage-coach ; and we find 
him one day stopping business at the Navy Depart- 
ment to play on the organ with some friends before 
dinner. In the commonwealth times music had 
been suppressed by the Puritans. Parliament passed 
an ordinance for systematically destroying all the 
church organs throughout the country. But when 
the king came to his own again the cavaliers became 
more musical than ever for the sake of annoying the 
Puritans. 

There was a great deal of ease and amusement, 
and much luxury. Some of the courtiers, it is said, 
lived in rooms in which the furniture was of solid 
ii8 



FIRST IMPRISONMENT 

silver, and there were decorated ceilings which cost 
half as much as the house. All kinds of games were 
popular, tennis, billiards, bowls, all the games we 
have now and many long since gone out of use. At 
Whitehall the officials and ministers debated their 
state affairs walking up and down the corridors. In- 
tercourse with the licentious king was easy and not 
very formal. Pepys, when he saw the king or the 
Duke of York out walking, seems to have gone up 
and spoken to them as though they had been boon 
companions. 

If we examine the portraits of those times, such, 
for example, as those which have been engraved in 
Lodge's famous volumes, we get from the costumes 
and faces a strong impression of a people who were 
far from destitute of culture. In fact, the age was 
full of the most extraordinary contradictions existing 
side by side. Such men as Milton or Dryden, 
Locke or Penn, daily heard language and saw sights 
in the streets that would amaze and horrify the 
modern world. The standing source of caricature 
and wit for a long time was the Rump Parliament, a 
name which originated in an indecent jest, and it 
was harped on for years by butcher boys exhibiting 
parts of dead animals in the streets or throwing them 
into windows, or by pictures of a vileness that cannot 
now even be described. 

There was one constant sight from which no 
traveller could keep his eyes. The heads of the 
many notorious political malefactors were stuck 
about as barbaric ornaments in various parts of 
London, on Temple Bar or on the bridge, and in 
n9 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

the smaller towns where insurrections had been 
suppressed. After the Restoration, when the regi- 
cides were drawn and quartered, their quarters were 
hung up in the streets like butchers' meat. The 
bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were 
taken from their graves, their heads cut off and 
mounted in the city. There, along with the other 
grim trophies of popular vengeance, they rotted in 
the wind and rain, the dishevelled hair slowly falling 
out, and the grinning skull becoming more and more 
ghastly as the flesh dried up and fell away, while 
beneath them in the foggy, muddy streets, surged 
that strange life of brilliant, gay cavaliers, sombre, 
stern Puritans, wild-eyed Fifth Monarchy men, 
Familists, Antinomians, Seekers, and other strange 
sects, all warring, jarring, persecuting, and tearing 
one another over those wonderful principles of free 
government and free religion which in a hundred 
years created the great American republic, and, may 
we hope, spread to the utmost ends of the earth. 



VIII 

CONTROVERSY, FIRST PRINCIPLES, AND IMPRISONMENT 

A FEW months after he was turned out of his 
father's house, Penn became a recognized preacher 
among the Quakers. Events had moved rapidly 
with him. In September, 1667, he had been finally 
converted at Cork, by listening to Thomas Loe, 
That same autumn he returned to his father in Eng- 
land, and in 1668, we are informed, he was accepted 
as a preacher. 

He was twenty-four years old ; and he had prob- 
ably quickly shown a facility for public speaking in 
the meetings he had attended. His mind had been 
long absorbed in religious subjects, and his education 
was an advantage. The Quakers were no doubt 
glad to have secured a convert from the cavalier 
class, and he was almost the first of this class that 
had come to them. Robert Barclay joined them 
about the same time ; and, indeed, this seems to 
have been the period when educated men were com- 
ing forward to rationalize and soften the fanaticism 
of Fox and the crudities of the old Familists and 
Seekers. Besides Penn and Barclay, there were 
Whitehead, Ellwood, and Pennington, who were soon 
engaged in this work. 

Twenty-five or thirty years afterwards Leslie, a 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

very sharp critic of the Quakers, described the effect 
upon them of Perm's writings. 

"Especially of late some of them have made nearer advances 
towards Christianity than ever before ; and among them the ingenious 
Mr. Penn has of late refined some of their gross notions, and brought 
them into some form, and has made them speak sense and English, 
of both which George Fox, their first and great apostle, was totally 
ignorant. . . . They endeavor all they can to make it appear that 
their doctrine was uniform from the beginning, and that there has 
been no alteration ; and therefor they take upon them to defend all 
the writings of George Fox, and others of the first Quakers, and turn 
and wind them to make them (but it is impossible) agree with what 
they teach now at this day." (" The Snake in the Grass," introduc- 
tion to 3d ed. of 1698.) 

The exact nature of this work done by Penn, 
Barclay, and others seems to have been to ignore 
the visions and half inclination to miracles of Fox, 
and in place of them argue in an orderly and learned 
manner for the simple faith they found among the 
Quakers, show that it was in close conformity to the 
primitive Christianity of the first three centuries, and 
disclose the political importance of its unusually ad- 
vanced ideas of religious liberty. To the part re- 
lating to religious liberty Penn especially devoted 
himself. 

Fox was incapable of work of this sort, but he 
could lay the foundation for it. His famous letter 
to the Governor of Barbadoes is regarded by many 
Quakers as their creed, as the original and simple 
statement of their faith, from which there is to be no 
deviation. In spite of bad grammar and the obscure, 
even unintelligible phrases of which Fox was guilty, 
there was a germinal power in his thought which 



FIRST PRINCIPLES AND IMPRISONMENT 

cannot be ignored. Penn late in life said of him, 
"As abruptly and brokenly as sometimes his sen- 
tences would fall from him about divine things, it 
is well known they were often as texts to many 
fairer declarations." Macaulay, who never spares 
either Fox or Penn, sharply adds, " that is to say, 
George Fox talked nonsense, and some of his friends 
paraphrased it into sense." 

But to return to Penn, who has just become a 
Quaker preacher. He retained, as we have already 
said in the first chapter, most of his cavalier dress. 
There is a tradition that he even continued to wear 
his sword, which was then a customary part of the 
costume of a man of rank or fashion. He consulted 
George Fox about it, saying that the weapon was 
hardly consistent with their principles, but it had 
saved his life in Paris without injuring his antagonist. 
Fox answered, " I advise thee to wear it as long as 
thou canst." 

Afterwards, meeting Penn without the sword, he 
said, — 

"William, where is thy sword?" 

"Oh," said Penn, "I have taken thy advice. I 
wore it as long as I could." 

It is probable that he wore the cavalier hat, or the 
fashionable hat of the time, stripped of its excessive 
ornamentation, nearly all his life. When James II. 
was king, which was when Penn was past forty, he 
and Penn were talking one day, and the king, who 
was a Roman Catholic, asked him to explain the 
difference between that religion and the Quaker 
faith. Penn pointed to their hats, which were ex- 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

actly alike except that the king's was covered with 
feathers and ribbons, " The only difference," said 
Penn, "lies in the ornaments that have been added 
to thine." 

This very clever and politic answer disposed of a 
dangerous question. George Fox would have an- 
swered differently, and there would have been trou- 
ble. But Penn was always careful not to give per- 
sonal offence by his religion. " I know no religion," 
he once said, " which destroys courtesy, civility, and 
kindness," and we have already noted that he some- 
times avoided using the offensive thee and thou lan- 
guage in his letters. 

But at the time of which we are now writing, the 
year 1668, the first of his preaching life, this cavalier 
Quaker, whether with or without a sword, cut and 
slashed about him with considerable vigor. He 
began immediately to write controversial pamphlets. 
The moderation of our time in these matters was 
then unknown, and the advocate of a sect would not 
have been respected or even understood unless he 
hit hard. 

His first tract was called "Truth Exalted," and 
consisted of sweeping abuse, in the rough language 
of the times, of all religions except his own. Pepys 
described it as "a ridiculous, nonsensical book." The 
papists were told that their church was the whore of 
Babylon, the corrupter of the nations, drunk with 
the blood of saints and martyrs, their whole religion 
founded and maintained by inhuman bloodshed and 
cruelty, and he goes on to rail at their holy water, 
"baby baptism," bowings, crosses, images, and 
124 



FIRST PRINCIPLES AND IMPRISONMENT 

Peter's chair. The Church of England was another 
persecutor, .lustful, proud, and wicked, that had 
made no progress in the Reformation, but clung to 
organs, fonts, "baby baptism," holy days, "with 
much more such like dirty trash and foul supersti- 
tion." As for the Puritans and other dissenters, 
they were hypocrites, revilers of God, whom they 
represented as worse than the worst man, and their 
doctrine of mere human origin. 

It is to be noticed in this tract that Penn, though a 
college-bred youth, protests against learning and 
higher education as an injury to religion. He also 
declares his belief in the possibility of human perfec- 
tion on earth as against original sin and total de- 
pravity. 

During the spring and summer of this year, 1668, 
he went twice to court in company with other 
Quakers to urge the release of those members of 
their faith who were in prison. The first time their 
application was made to the Duke of Buckingham, 
who favored liberty, but could do nothing for them. 
Their second application was to the secretary of 
state, Sir Henry Berwick ; and again they failed. 
Penn's companions on these occasions were George 
Whitehead, Josiah Coale, and Thomas Loe. They 
doubtless took Penn with them, because, as a cavalier 
and a son of the admiral, he might arouse some 
interest in their favor. This was his first attempt to 
use his cavalier character in this way, and, though 
unsuccessful in this instance, he followed it up more 
effectually in later years, and, as a Quaker courtier, 
accomplished some very substantial results. 

125 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

He soon wrote another hard-hitting controversial 
pamphlet called "The Guide Mistaken ;" and about 
the same time, or soon after, two Presbyterians of 
the congregation of Thomas Vincent, at Spittlefields, 
London, became Quakers. The enraged Vincent 
stormed against the " damnable doctrines" that had 
seduced them, and called Penn a Jesuit. Penn and 
George Whitehead immediately challenged him to 
an open debate before his own congregation. These 
debates were common at that time, and usually vety 
uproarious affairs. 

When Penn and Whitehead arrived, they had to 
push their way through the crowded congregation, 
while Vincent, who was waiting for them all prepared, 
kept up a running fire of denunciation, Penn and 
Whitehead, however, plunged into the wordy war, 
and amid hisses and calls of Jesuit, blasphemer, 
damnable villain, maintained for a long time an 
argument on the doctrine of the Trinity, while Vin- 
cent kept interrupting them with savage questions. 
He affected to be shocked at their arguments, and 
fell suddenly to prayer, charging them with blas- 
phemy. The congregation blew out the candles 
and tried to pull down the Quakers. Nobody was 
satisfied with the result, and they tried to no purpose 
to arrange for another debate. 

This induced Penn to write a pamphlet, and a 
very famous one, called "The Sandy Foundation 
Shaken," which set forth his rejection of the doc- 
trine of the Trinity as commonly stated. At the 
same time it attacked the doctrine of the atonement 
for the sins of the world by the death of Christ, and 
126 



FIRST PRINCIPLES AND IMPRISONMENT 

the doctrine of imputative righteousness. That was 
certainly enough to get a young man, or any one, 
into trouble in that age. 

He assailed the doctrine of the Trinity as a 
scholastic invention of the Middle Ages, and, after 
dealing with the old-fashioned metaphysical subtle- 
ties, described it as "conceived in ignorance, brought 
forth and maintained by cruelty." It was a mere 
human invention, unknown to the primitive church, 
"neither was it believed by the primitive saints or 
thus stated by any I have read of in the first, second, 
or third centuries. " God, he said, was " not to be 
divided, but [was] one pure, entire, and eternal 
being, who in the fulness of time sent forth his Son 
as the true light." Afterwards, at the close of the 
pamphlet, he added, " Mistake me not ; we never 
have disowned a Father, Word, and Spirit, which 
are one, but [we disown] men's inventions." 

This was in a general way what the Quakers be- 
lieved on this subject. They held that although 
the three persons were mentioned in the Scriptures 
and declared to be one, yet the complicated doc- 
trine of the Trinity, as stated in the Athanasian 
creed, was never heard of until three hundred years 
after Christ. They preferred, they said, the state- 
ment of the Scriptures to the statement of the 
school-men. They accepted the simple account in 
the New Testament that the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost were one ; but they rejected the scholastic 
doctrine that the three were each separate and 
distinct persons and substances, and yet also one. 
Such idle metaphysics, they said, tended not to 
127 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

righteousness, and were unknown to the primitive 
Christians. 

In the second part of the " Sandy Foundation" 
Penn attacked the commonly received doctrine of 
the atonement, which held that mankind had been 
saved from the infinite and unforgiving wrath of 
God only by the infliction of all that wrath and ven- 
geance on Christ, who in his death wholly paid for 
the unforgivable sins of man, past, present, and to 
come. Penn ridiculed this doctrine as inconsistent 
with numerous passages of Scripture which describe 
God as merciful, loving, and righteous, and as in 
itself absurd and contrary to reason ; for remission 
of sins and salvation came by faith, obedience, and 
good works. 

This was another fundamental doctrine of the 
early Quakers. They carried their belief in the 
inner light so far as to hold that the appearance of 
Christ on the earth was solely to confer his spirit — 
that is, the inner light — on all men. The only Christ 
they worshipped was the spiritual Christ in each 
heart. His sufferings and death as man were simply 
incidents of his earthly life, and not fit subjects for 
worship. They held that it was his spirit that would 
save mankind, and not the shedding of his blood or 
any mere act or event of his life ; that he came to 
save men by giving them a spiritual principle that 
would change their hearts ; that the idea of it being 
necessary, in order to save mankind, that Christ 
should be sacrificed and tortured was a mere mate- 
rial and vulgar notion, unworthy of belief and incon- 
sistent with any sense of justice on the part of God. 
128 



FIRST PRINCIPLES AND IMPRISONMENT 

This opinion seems to have been held by the 
majority of Quakers for over a hundred and fifty 
years without any serious dissent from it. But a 
party was slowly growing up among them which in- 
clined to return to the old form of the doctrine of 
the atonement, and by the year 1827, this party had 
become a majority of all the Quakers in England 
and America. There was a great controversy over 
the question, and a separation followed. The 
majority became known as the Orthodox Quakers, 
while those who held to the doctrine of Penn and 
the early leaders of the sect were called Hicksites.* 

The last part of Penn's "Sandy Foundation" 
assailed that familiar doctrine of" the time that men 
could be justified in the sight of God, not by their 
good works, but only by the righteousness of Christ 
being imputed to them. This was a much worn 
subject of controversy, and the numerous small and 
radical sects which were being absorbed by the 
Quakers were very strenuous in maintaining that 
imputed righteousness was an absurdity, and that a 
man could be justified or sanctified only by his own 
acts of righteousness or innocency. 

Penn had now attained what must have been a 
considerable part of his youthful ambition. He had 
succeeded in stating, with fully detailed arguments, 
some of the most fundamental principles of the new 
faith which had aroused his enthusiasm. As an 
educated man he must have felt the need of such a 



* Janney's History of the Friends, vol. iv. chaps, vi., viii., xiv. ; 
The Making of Pennsylvania, p. 50. 
9 "9 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

printed statement, — something that would be more 
durable and more of a record than street- or field- 
preaching, or a furious verbal controversy with 
Presbyterians amid hisses, mockery, and violence. 
He had become, in fact, the first Quaker theologian. 

As we read the "Sandy Foundation," it is easy 
to see that it was written with thoroughness and care. 
Pepys says, ' ' I find it so well writ as I think it is too 
good for him ever to have writ it ; and it is a serious 
sort of book and not fit for everybody to read." f Its 
youthful author must have been a diligent student 
of theology, and familiar with all the abstruseness 
of the religious controversies of the time. But he 
was very young to be doing such a thing, for he was 
only twenty-four years old. 

We must remember, however, that in the fluid 
state of religious opinion, and in the strange religious 
excitement which had set everybody rushing to and 
fro, it was easy for youthful ardor, if backed by any 
ability at all, to produce an impression. 

The arguments of his pamphlet are now the ac- 
cepted belief of millions. The substance of the 
faith of the early Quakers was that they liked to be- 
lieve that Christ was divine without being obliged to 
state his divinity in the form of a metaphysical 
subtlety. They liked to believe that he came to 
save the world, but in a spiritual sense, and not 
merely by means of death and suffering. This gen- 
eral spiritual idea of his divinity has now spread to 
every division of Christendom, and is the most sin- 



f Vol. viii. p. 227. 
130 



FIRST PRINCIPLES AND IMPRISONMENT 

cere form of belief on the subject held in modern 
times. Millions of men and women who announce 
themselves as Trinitarians mean only that they be- 
lieve in a general way in the divinity of Christ. 
Few of them care for the doctrine of the Trinity as 
taught in the Middle Ages, and few of them could 
even state it. 

But it was a daring thing to announce such belief 
in the year 1668. Such doctrine might possibly 
pass unnoticed in a field-preacher, but printed and 
circulated with an educated man's name attached it 
was an atrocious crime. The Bishop of London 
saw in Penn's pamphlet what to him was a flat de- 
nial of the divinity of Christ, and that was a crime 
by act of Parliament. Penn was forthwith arrested 
and sent to the Tower, where for nine months the 
powerful influence that could be exerted in favor of 
a cavalier was unable to release him. 

He had in truth committed a very serious offence, 
and for some time he was imprisoned with such 
rigor that his friends could not see him. He was 
informed that "the bishop was resolved that he 
should publicly recant or die a prisoner." To this 
he replied, — 

" All is well : I wish they had told me so before, since the ex- 
pecting of a release put a stop to some business ; thou mayst tell 
my father, who I know will ask thee, these words : that my prison 
shall be my grave, before I will budge a jot ; for I owe my con- v 
science to no mortal man ; I have no need to fear ; God will make 
amends for all ; they are mistaken in me ; I value not their threats 
and resolutions, for they shall know I can weary out their malice 
and peevishness, and in me shall they all behold a resolution above 
fear ; conscience above cruelty, and a baffle put to all their designs 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

by the spirit of patietice, the companion of all the tribulated flock 
of the blessed Jesus, who is the author and finisher of the faith that 
overcomes the world, yea, death and hell too. Neither great nor 
good things are ever attained without loss and hardships. He that 
would reap and not labor, must faint with the wind and perish in 
disappointments ; but an hair of my head shall not fall without the 
Providence of my Father that is over all." 

So, like Sir Walter Raleigh and John Bunyan, he 
settled down to writing a book while in prison, and 
prepared his most famous work, " No Cross, No 
Crown." The title was an excellent one and has 
prolonged the life of the book, which is the only one 
of Penn's writings that is still sometimes republished. 
It shows the strange religiousness of that age when 
liberty was new. Its thoughts have been thrashed 
over by millions of Christian preachers again and 
again in our time, and seem commonplace enough, 
for Christianity has accepted the spiritual movement 
which Penn and the Quakers were starting and 
carried it far beyond anything they dreamed of But 
it was a new thing then to insist so absolutely on 
good works as against blind faith, and on spirituality 
as against dogmas and ceremonies. It was a new 
thing to speak of the cross, not as an outward 
symbol, but as an inward light. It was startling to 
be told that all religion could take place within the 
soul, and not in a church or confessional box. 

George Fox relates that when he first declared 
that a church was not a building, not lime and 
stone, but a spiritual body, his hearers were so 
amazed that they broke up the meeting. They 
were beside themselves with the astonishment of 
men who have heard something which secretly com- 
132 



FIRST PRINCIPLES AND IMPRISONMENT 

forts and delights them, but which they dare not ac- 
cept. 

In " No Cross, No Crown" Penn, of course, argued 
strongly for primitive Christianity, and protested in 
Puritan fashion against the corruptions of the times, 
the balls, masks, and feasting, pride, avarice, and 
luxury. All these things could be mitigated only 
by Quaker spirituality, the cultivation of the inward 
light and the refusal to encourage human pride by 
pulling off the hat, bowing, and giving fulsome titles. 

But the advocacy of the special principles of the 
Quakers forms a very small portion of the book. It 
was in reality a strong appeal to the general religious 
sentiment of mankind without regard to creed, an 
appeal to the growing spirituality which has become 
the modern religion in place of dogma ; and it is 
this quality which causes it still to be occasionally 
republished. 

If it had been well written it would have been a 
wonderful book. But, unfortunately, Penn wrote in 
a diffuse, wordy, dull way, which obscured and crip- 
pled the really great ideas he had in his soul. 

In the second part of "No Cross, No Crown," 
which seems to have been written some years after- 
wards, Penn cites the sayings of about eighty famous 
men of the ancient and classical world, and of about 
sixty of later times, to show how all the great and 
wise, heathen and Christians, without regard to sect, 
testified in favor of pure spiritual righteousness and 
good works as the only true religion. 

These citations show that in his youth Penn must 
have been an omniverous reader and spent much 
133 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

time in libraries. His handling of the innumerable 
texts he cites shows great familiarity with the Bible. 
Indeed, it is impossible to read his works without 
concluding that although he had no great gift of 
literary expression, yet he was a man fully informed 
in the knowledge of his day and most painstaking 
and thorough in his researches and preparation. 

Meanwhile, however, he remained in prison and 
was assailed in pamphlets and from pulpits as a se- 
ducer, heretic, and blasphemer, for whom the ven- 
geance of the Great Day was reserved. He wrote a 
letter to the secretary of state, Lord Arlington, asking 
to be released, because his imprisonment was illegal. 
He had had no trial ; he had not been heard in his 
own defence ; and then he went on to argue on the 
injustice and impolicy of punishing people for their 
religious opinions. " Force," he says, " may make 
hypocrites, but it can never make converts." The 
close of his letter was spirited enough for any cav- 
alier. 

"I make no apology for my letter, as a trouble — the usual style 
of suppliants ; because I think the honor that will accrue to thee by 
being just and releasing the opprest, exceeds the advantage that can 
succeed to me." 

This is one of the instances in which Penn used 
the offensive thee and thou language in a public 
letter to an official. But he was on his metal and 
very much excited at this time. He expected 
to be called up for examination on his heresy, or 
given some sort of trial in which he would have a 
chance to explain his position more fully and at the 
same time assist the cause of his sect. But the 
134 



FIRST PRINCIPLES AND IMPRISONMENT 

Bishop of London and the government, thoroughly 
accustomed as they were to rehgious controversies, 
had no intention of giving the ambitious young man 
such a grand opportunity to display himself They 
hoped to wean him from his delusion by severity 
and personal influence. The influence was supplied 
by his father and Bishop Stillingfleet, who visited 
him, and Penn after A-ards described how they worked 
upon him. 

" As I saw very few, so I saw them but seldom, except my own 
father and Dr. Stillingfleet, the present BUhop of Worcester. The 
one came as my relation, the other at the king's command, to en- 
deavor my change of judgment. But as I told him, and he told the 
king, that the Tower was the worst argument in the w irld to con- 
vince me, for whoever was in the wrong those who used force for 
religion, never could be in the right — so neither the Doctor's argu- 
ments, nor his moving and interesting motives of the king's favor 
and preferment, at all prevailed ; and I am glad I have the oppor- 
tunity to own so publicly the great pains he too'-:, and humanity he 
showed, and that to his moderation, learning, and kindness, I will ever 
hold myself obliged." (Memoirs, Penna. Hist. Soc, vol. iii. part 
ii. p. 239.) 

Finding that he was not to be publicly examined 
or allowed to defend himself, Penn finally decided to 
write a pamphlet showing that he had not denied 
the divinity of Christ He called this new produc- 
tion " Innocency with her Open Face," and in it he 
announced most unequivocally his belief in the di- 
vinit>-, and maintained by citations of Scripture and 
argument the Quaker position, which, while ex- 
pressly admitting the divinity, rejected the compli- 
cated scholastic doctrine of the Trinit}^ and imputed 
righteousness. 

This pamphlet secured his release, or rather gave 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

a ground-work on which his friends could help him. 
His father, as we have shown, had strong claims on 
the gratitude of the Duke of York, and the duke in- 
terceded with the king. 

Penn, who never forgot a favor or a kindness, and 
with whom gratitude was a lifelong sentiment, ever 
afterwards considered himself bound to the duke by 
the strongest feeling of friendliness. It was by no 
means the last of the duke's favors, and Penn's in- 
creasing attachment to him was not altogether for- 
tunate in later years. 

Penn, now a free man once more, could look back 
with some satisfaction on his nine months' imprison- 
ment. In the religious conflicts of that time im- 
prisonment was a test of sincerity and fitness. It 
had to be endured with a serene and high spirit 
Religious belief had for many years been measured 
by its advocates' willingness to die at the stake or on 
the gallows ; and the people had nothing but con- 
tempt for religion of any other kind. A small sect 
that flinched at the stake or the jail became a laugh- 
ing stock and went out of existence. 

Penn had done what George Fox could also so 
effectually do. He had not merely endured his im- 
prisonment with a spirit that won the respect both 
of his followers and his enemies, but he had made 
the imprisonment a means of advancing the cause 
he had at heart, of making it known to the world in 
a way that would arouse enthusiasm. He had stated 
more fully and completely than had yet been done 
the fundamental doctrines of his faith in his two 
pamphlets, "The Sandy Foundation" and " Inno- 
136 



FIRST PRINCIPLES AND IMPRISONMENT 

cency with her Open Face ;" and these two pam- 
phlets, the one that imprisoned him and the one 
that released him, are to this day the authorities 
used to prove the original doctrines of the Quakers. 
When we add to these two pamphlets his book, 
" No Cross, No Crown," which has also a permanent 
value, we have Penn's three most important works ; 
and it was a good deal to be accomplished within a 
twelvemonth by a young man of only twenty-four, 
who had spent most of that time locked up in the 
Tower. 



IX 

TRIAL BY JURY AND HAT HONOR 

Among the persons whose respect Penn won by 
his imprisonment was his father, the admiral. But 
the father's relenting was slight. The little inter- 
course he had with his son was still formal and severe. 
While the son had been going through his year of 
controversy and imprisonment, the admiral had had 
troubles of his own ; for it was in that year that he 
was impeached as already described, and prevented 
from going to sea in command of the fleet. In 
addition to that annoyance and disappointment, he 
was now laid up with a bad attack of the gout. 

But he relented so far as to request that Penn 
should go back to Ireland and again take charge of 
the family estate. He would not, however, conde- 
scend to make this request directly ; it was made to 
the wayward son through his mother. " If you are 
ordained to be another cross to me," said the ad- 
miral, when he at last consented to write to his son^ 
"God's will be done, and I shall arm myself the best 
I can against it." 

Penn was in Ireland on this occasion for about a 
year, and in the intervals of business seems to have 
found ample time for very substantial service to the 
people of his faith. On his arrival he found nearly 
all the Quakers of the town of Cork in prison, " The 
138 



TRIAL BY JURY AND HAT HONOR 

jail," he says, had become *' a meeting-house and a 
workhouse, for they would not be idle anywhere." 

Jealousy in trade, he found, had combined with 
religious hatred to accomplish this persecution. He 
prepared a general statement of their case, and with 
the assistance of his friends laid the matter before 
the lord lieutenant at Dublin, and soon he had the 
satisfaction of obtaining an order of council for the 
release of his people. This was the first time he 
had succeeded in effecting a release of this kind, 
and it was a sort of business of which he did a good 
deal in after years. 

It is curious to find him, in a public letter he 
prepared, "To the young convinced," arguing for 
that quietude and silent contemplation which was 
one of the foundation principles of his sect. Let 
us not, he says, " enter into many reasonings with 
opposers." He certainly had not been living up to 
this standard himself, and he was soon to be thrown 
into still fiercer controversy. 

The leaders of the Quakers do not, as we read 
about their doings, have the appearance of quietists. 
They hit as hard and used as violent language as 
their opponents ; and it would have been difficult 
for them to have maintained themselves in any other 
way. Doubtless, however, they enjoyed many in- 
tervals when they could cultivate the inner light by 
serene contemplation. A few months in prison 
would give abundant opportunities ; and the rank 
and file who were not called upon to write or preach 
could live closer to the ideal standard. 

In 1670 Penn returned to London, where, either 
139 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

because he had conducted the Irish business well 
or because his father saw no use in holding out 
longer, a complete reconciliation took place between 
them. 

In this same year, because the infection of Quaker 
doctrine seemed to be growing worse, it was decided 
to use against them more strenuously the famous 
Conventicle Act which had been passed in 1664. 
This act made unlawful any meetings for worship 
other than those of the Church of England ; the 
magistrates were allowed to fine and imprison with- 
out trial by jury, and informers were given one-third 
of the fines. It was an arbitrary, despotic law, in 
clear violation of the principles of English liberty. 

The punishment of the Quakers was always in 
progress at this period. Every month proceedings 
were begun in the various counties as the magis- 
trates and officials obtained evidence, or thought 
that they had a jury that would convict, and fines 
and imprisonments were inflicted. But in this year, 
1670, the work of suppression was particularly ac- 
tive, and it was inevitable that Penn, in spite of 
the importance of his family, must sooner or later 
be brought within its sweep. 

He had gone, it seems, one day in August, to the 
meeting-house in Gracechurch Street or Gracious 
Street, as it was sometimes called, in London, and, 
finding the doors guarded by soldiers, he and some 
other Quakers held a silent meeting standing before 
the door. He was soon moved to speak, and imme- 
diately the constables who were on the watch seized 

him. 

140 



TRIAL BY JURY AND HAT HONOR 

Brought before the mayor, he was roughly handled 
by that official, who told him he "should have his 
hat pulled off, for all he was Admiral Perm's son." 
He would send him to Bridewell, he said, and see 
him whipped ; and he went on abusing the admiral, 
repeating some of the current charges of the day 
against him, and accusing him of starving the sailors. 
The authorities made a good haul that day, and be- 
sides the Quakers they captured a number of Inde- 
pendents and Baptists. 

Penn was confined at the sign of the Black Dog, 
in Newgate Market, whence he wrote an affectionate 
letter to his father. " I am very well," he says, " and 
have no trouble upon my spirits, besides my absence 
from thee, especially at this juncture, but otherwise 
I can say, I was never better ; and what they have 
to charge me with is harmless." 

Soon afterwards he and William Mead, who was 
arrested with him, were brought to trial on an indict- 
ment charging them with preaching to an unlawful 
assembly, and causing a great concourse and tumult 
to the disturbance of the king's peace and the great 
terror of many of his liege subjects. A full account 
of the trial, which was held in the Old Baily during 
the first five days of September, 1670, may now be 
found in the first volume of Penn's works, and a few 
quotations from it will show the rough method of 
that time in administering criminal justice. Accused 
persons were not then, or, indeed, for a long time 
afterwards, allowed counsel to defend them. 

The trial was conducted principally by the re- 
corder of London, and there were on the bench with 
141 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

him to compose the court, the mayor, five aldermen, 
and three sheriffs. When Penn and Mead entered 
the room wearing their hats, the officers, it seems, 
pulled them off. But the court, according to the 
report of the trial, did not choose to be deprived of 
its sport. 

"Mayor. — Sirrah, who bid you put off their hats? Put on their 
hats again. 

" Observer. — Whereupon one of the officers, putting the prisoners' 
hats upon their heads (pursuant to the order of the Court), brought 
them to the bar. 

" Recorder. — Do you know wliere you are ? 

'^'^ Penn. — Yes. 

" Recorder. — Do you know it is the King's court ? 

" Penn. — I know it to be a court, and I suppose it to be the King's 
court. 

" Recorder. — Do you know there is respect due to the court ? 

" Penn.— Yes. 

" Recorder. — Why do you not pay it, then ? 

" Penn. — I do so. 

" Recorder. — Why do you not put off your hat, then? 

" Penn. — Because I do not believe that to be respect. 

" Recorder. — Well, the court sets forty marks apiece upon your 
heads, as a fine, for your contempt of the court. 

" Penn. — I desire it may be observed, that we came into the court 
with our hats off (that is, taken off), and if they have been put on 
since, it was by order from the bench ; and therefore, not we, but the 
bench should be fined." 

Prisoners not being allowed counsel, the court was 
supposed to be their counsel and see that they were 
fairly tried ; but the judges handled them very much 
as French judges still do. They questioned and 
teased them, and the prisoners' attempts to defend 
themselves were apt to become unseemly alterca- 
tions with the judges. 

Penn declared that he had only been worshipping 



TRIAL BY JURY AND HAT HONOR 

God according to his conscience, and had broken no 
law, and a-sked to be shown what law they thought 
he had broken. The recorder would give only a 
surly general answer that he had broken the common 
law, and ordered him to plead to the indictment. 

" />enn.—Sh3.\\ I plead to an indictment that hath no foundation 
in law ? If it contain that law you say I have broken, why should 
you decline to produce that law, since it will be impossible for the 
jury to determine or agree to bring in their verdict, who hath not the 
law produced, by which they should measure the truth of this indict- 
ment, and the guilt or contrary, of my act. 

" Kecordei'. — You are a saucy fellow ; speak to the indictment. 
»< Penn. — I say it is my place to speak to matter of law ; I am ar- 
raigned a prisoner; my liberty, which is next to life itself, is now 
concerned ; you are many mouths and ears against me, and if I must 
not be allowed to make the best of my case, it is hard, I say again, 
unless you shew me, and the people, the law you ground your indict- 
ment upon, I shall take it for granted, your proceedings are merely 
arbitrary. 

" Observer. — (At this time several upon the bench urged, hard 
upon the prisoner, to bear him down.) 

" Recorder. — The question is, whether you are guilty of this in- 
dictment ? 

" Pen7t. — The question is not whether I am guilty of this indict- 
ment but whether this indictment be legal. It is too general and 
imperfect an answer, to say it is the common law, unless we know 
both where and what it is ; for where there is no law, there is no 
transgression, and that law which is not in being, is so far from being 
common, that it is no law at all. 

" Recorder. — You are an impertinent fellow ; will you teach the 
Court what law is? It's lex non scripta, that which many have 
studied thirty or forty years to know, and would you have me tell 
you in a moment ? 

" Penn. — Certainly, if the common law be so hard to be under- 
stood, it's far from being very common ; but if the Lord Coke in his 
Institutes be of any consideration, he tells us that common law is 
common right ; and that common right is the great charter of privi- 
leges, confirmed 9 Hen. III. 29 ; 25 Edw. I. I ; 2 Edw. III. 8 ; 
Coke's Insts. 2 p. 56. 

143 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

" Recorder. — Sir, you are a troublesome fellow, and it is not for 
the honor of the court to suffer you to go on. 

" Penn. — I have asked but one question, and you have not an- 
swered me ; though the rights and privileges of every Englishman 
be concerned in it. 

" Recorder. — Take him away ; my Lord, if you take not some 
course with this pestilent fellow, to stop his mouth, we shall not be 
able to do anything to-night. 

" Mayor. — Take him away, take him away ! turn him into the 
Bale-dock." 

Penn stood up sturdily for what he beheved to be 
his rights and the rights of all Englishmen ; but we 
have not space to quote all his arguments, some of 
which he shouted across the room to the court and 
jury when removed to the distance of the bale-dock. 

When the jury were called upon for their verdict 
they announced that they found Penn " guilty of 
speaking in Gracious street." This was, of course, 
no crime, and the court stormed at them to make 
their verdict read "guilty of speaking in Gracious 
Street to an unlawful assembly." But they would 
go no further than to say " guilty of speaking to an 
assembly in Gracious street ;" and neither the threats 
of the court nor two days' starvation would induce 
them to put in the word unlawful. It was, of course, 
their covert way of mocking at the court and at- 
tacking the law and policy that attempted to sup- 
press the worship of dissenters. 

They were sent out again and again, but every 
time they returned with the same mock verdict. At 
each of their returns there would be discussion, 
savage threats from the bench, and protests from 
Penn. 

144 



TRIAL BY JURY AND HAT HONOR 

" Penn.— It is intolerable that my jury should be thus menaced ; is 
this according to the fundamental law ? Are not they my proper judges 
by the Great Charter of England ? What hope is there of ever having 
justice done when juries are threatened and their verdict rejected ? 

******** 

" Mayor. — Stop his mouth ; jailor, bring fetters and stake him to 
the ground. 

" Fenn. — Do your pleasure, I matter not your fetters. 

" Recorder. — Till now I never understood the reason of the policy 
and prudence of the Spaniards, in suffering the Inquisition among 
them; and certainly it will never be well with us till something like 
the Spanish Inquisition be in England." 

After having been kept out two days and two 
nights without beds or food the jury brought in a 
verdict of not guilty, which being in regular form, 
the court was reluctantly obliged to accept it. But 
the judges were determined to get even with the jury 
and Penn in another way. 

" Recorder. — I am sorry, gentlemen, you have followed your own 
judgment and opinions rather than the good and wholesome advice 
which was given you. God keep my life out of your hands ; but for 
this the court fines you forty marks a man, and imprisonment till 
paid ; at which Penn stept forward towards the bench, and said : 

"Fenn. — I demand my liberty, being freed by the jury. 

" Mayor. — No, you are in for your fines. 

" Penn. — Fines for what ? 

" Mayor. — For contempt of the court. 

" Fenn. — I ask if it be according to the fundamental laws of Eng- 
land, that any Englishman should be fined or amerced but by the 
judgment of his peers or jury ? since it expressly contradicts the 
fourteenth and twenty-ninth chapter of the Great Charter of Eng- 
land which says. No freeman ought to be amerced, but by the oath 
of good and lawful men of the vicinage. 

" Recorder. — Take him away, take him away, take him out the 
court. 

" Fenn. — I can never urge the fundamental laws of England but 

you cry, Take him away, take him away ; but 'tis no wonder, since 

the Spanish Inquisition hath so great a place in the Recorder's heart. 

God Almighty, who is just, will judge you for all these things." 

145 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Both Penn and the jury were thrust into the bale- 
dock and thence sent to Newgate until they should 
pay their fines. The jury demanded their freedom 
every six hours, and, regarding themselves as mar- 
tyrs, refused to pay the fines. 

" I intreat thee," wrote Penn to his father, "not to 
purchase my liberty. They will repent them of 
their proceedings. I am now a prisoner notoriously 
against law." And in another letter, he wrote, 
" Considering I cannot be free, but upon such terms 
as strengthening their arbitrary and base proceed- 
ings, I shall rather choose to suffer any hardship. . . . 
My present restraint is so far from being humor, that 
I would rather perish than release myself by so in- 
direct a course as to satiate their revengeful, avari- 
cious appetites." 

It was an interesting picture of the times and of 
Anglo-Saxon sturdiness, — Penn and the jury vigor- 
ously standing by what they believed to be their 
rights and remaining in the vileness of Newgate 
when they could have purchased their liberty for a 
trifle. 

It must be confessed, however, that the jury had 
been not a little contumacious in continually bring- 
ing in a mock verdict. It was, of course, their way 
of showing their contempt for the whole proceeding, 
and their sympathy for the Quakers and all other 
dissenters whose worship was interfered with. But 
they could have shown their contempt just as effica- 
ciously by at once bringing in a verdict of not 
guilty. It was perhaps right that they should be 
fined for such irregular conduct. But it was a ques- 
146 



TRIAL BY JURY AND HAT HONOR 

tion whether the court could impose the fine without 
trying them in the usual way before another jury. 
The court claimed the right to fine without trial, and 
the obstinacy of Penn's jury in remaining in prison 
seems to have brought the question to a decision. 
It was argued at length before the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas, which decided that the jury's view of 
the law was sound. The order inflicting their fines 
was rescinded and they were set at liberty. 

Penn's case was somewhat different If he had 
insisted on wearing his hat in court after it had been 
taken off by the officers, the judges would have been 
right in fining him. Removal of the hat was an act 
of respect paid in every court of justice, and still 
paid, for even the Quakers do not now insist on 
wearing their hats in court. People could not be 
allowed to appear naked in court or commit any 
other offensive act and claim exemption from pun- 
ishment on the ground of religion. But according 
to the report of the trial Penn's hat was removed by 
an officer when he came into court, and the court 
ordered the hat put on again so as to have a chance 
to badger and fine him for wearing it. This was cer- 
tainly inexcusable, and Penn was right in protesting 
against such a fine. 

The account we have of the trial was published 
soon after the trial was held, with a preface and a 
long appendix, which discussed very fully all the 
questions of civil liberty involved, and had a great 
deal to say of Magna Charta and other sources of 
British freedom. As this account was apparently 
prepared by the Quakers, it is possible that it may 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

be too highly colored and too favorable to Penn and 
Mead. Some one, signing himself "S. S.," wrote 
an answer to it, attacking Penn's father for stealing 
prize-money and amassing ill-gotten riches for a con- 
scientious fool of a son, who made such a noise in 
court that the judge could not charge the jury. As 
for the Quakers, they were a libelling, lying, discon- 
tented people, who would set the country in a flame. 
When the king seized their meeting-house, they 
broke in the doors, overpowered the constables, and 
kicked and spurned the officers who attempted to 
break up their unlawful assembly. Against this 
attack Penn wrote a long reply called " Truth Res- 
cued from Imposture ;" and, reading all these three 
documents together, it does not seem that the origi- 
nal Quaker report of the trial is at all seriously 
impugned. 

The publication of the report and the sturdy con- 
duct of Penn and William Mead, as described in 
it, were unquestionably useful. It was another effort 
in the long struggle of Anglo-Saxon liberty ; and 
although it is not possible to point to any specific 
change in criminal trials as the result of it, yet, 
together with the other protests, it gradually, in the 
course of years, educated public opinion and wrought 
the improvement which has now long been enjoyed 
in all English-speaking countries. 

How long Penn and Mead might have remained 
in prison as a protest against their arbitrary judges 
we cannot say ; for Penn's father brought the im- 
prisonment to a speedy termination. The admiral's 
health was rapidly declining. In his irritated and 



TRIAL BY JURY AND HAT HONOR 

anxious state he could no longer bear the annoyance 
of his son's imprisonment, and he could not bear the 
thought of dying without seeing him. The question 
of principle which seemed of so much importance 
to the son was in the father's eyes a silly sentiment. 
So, in spite of the son's protest, the father paid his 
fine and also that of William Mead, and they were 
at once set free. 

When Penn reached home he found that his father 
had only a few days to live. Their meeting must 
have been an affecting one. The admiral had been 
thinking what terrible things might happen in the 
future to his stubborn offspring, who had such a pas- 
sion for making a martyr of himself in loathsome 
prisons. He had accordingly sent a friend to the 
Duke of York to make his dying request that the 
duke would watch over his son and intercede with 
the king when necessary for his protection. Both 
the duke and the king sent back the kindest answers 
and promises, which must have greatly relieved the 
dying admiral ; and these promises were afterwards 
fulfilled to the letter. 

The admiral could no longer quarrel with his son ; 
natural affection had got the better of all other feel- 
ings. But the low spirits and irritation which ac- 
company the gout turned his mind to despondency 
and melancholy. He seemed to be no longer the 
cavalier admiral and courtier. He declaimed against 
the wickedness and impurity of the age like a Puri- 
tan and prophesied judgments upon England for the 
dissolute and profane lives of her gentry and no- 
bility. His son describes him as very repentant. 
149 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

" Son William, I am weary of the world. I would not live over 
my days again if I could command them with a wish ; for the snares 
of life are greater than the fears of death. This troubles me that I 
have offended a gracious God. 

" The thought of that has followed me to this day. Oh ! have a 
care of sin ! It is that which is the sting both of life and death. 
Three things I commend to you : 

" First. — Let nothing in this world tempt you to wrong your con- 
science ; so you will keep peace at home, which will be a feast to 
you in the day of trouble. 

" Secondly. — Whatever you design to do, lay it justly and time it 
seasonably, for that gives security and despatch. 

" Lastly. — Be not troubled at disappointments, for if they may be 
recovered, do it ; if they cannot, trouble is vain. If you could not 
have helped it, be content ; there is often peace and profit in sub- 
mitting to Providence : for aiflictions make wise. If you could have 
helped it, let not your trouble exceed instruction for another time. 

" These rules will carry you with firmness and comfort through 
this inconstant world." 

The admiral died on the i6th of September, 1670, 
and with ahnost his last breath said to his son, — 

" If you and your friends keep to your plain way of preaching and 
to your plain way of living, you will make an end of the priests to 
the end of the world. Bury me by my mother. Live in love. 
Shun all manner of evil, and I pray God to bless you all, and he 
will bless you." 



PENN BECOMES RICH, AND ALSO, THEY SAID, A DAN- 
GEROUS MAN 

At his father's death Penn came into possession 
of a handsome estate. At least, so we are informed 
by that old biography by Besse, much relied upon 
by all subsequent biographers, and prefixed to the 
edition of Penn's writings published in 1726, not 
long after his death. His subsequent biographer, 
Clarkson, goes a step farther, and fixes the value of 
this estate as yielding an income of at least fifteen 
hundred pounds a year. Clarkson gives no author- 
ity, and his statement is probably only a guess or 
some tradition he had heard among the Quakers. If 
it is correct, Penn was one of the rich young men of 
his day, for fifteen hundred pounds a year was easily 
the equivalent of thirty thousand dollars a year in 
our time. 

Penn had a younger brother and a sister, and his 
mother was also still living. As the eldest son he 
may have had the largest share of the family estate ; 
but if the mother and the other two children were 
in any way suitably provided for, the admiral had 
attained one of the great ambitions of his life, — the 
accumulation of a family fortune. 

But, independently of the exact amount of his in- 
come, we know from several contemporary sources 
151 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

that Penn's fortune was regarded at that time as a 
rather large one. He, indeed, once described him- 
self as a man " of great acquaintance and plentiful 
estate." He was reviled and ridiculed by cavaliers 
as a youth of ability, opportunities, and wealth, who 
was fooling them all away with the silly Quakers. 

"I vow Mr. Penn I am sorry for you," said Sir John Robinson, 
the lieutenant of the Tower; "you are an ingenious gentleman, all 
the world must allow you and do allow you that, and you have a 
plentiful estate. Why should you render yourself unhappy by asso- 
ciating with such a simple people?" 

" I confess," replied Penn, " I hive made it my choice to relinquish 
the company of those that are ingeniously wicked, to converse with 
those that are more honestly simple." 

And, indeed, neither the death of his father nor 
the sudden possession of a large, independent fortune 
checked him for a moment in his efforts for the 
honestly simple folk, as he called them, whose faith 
he had made his own. Almost immediately after 
his father's death he challenged to public controversy 
a Baptist preacher named Ives. This Ives had in 
one of his sermons attacked both Penn and the 
Quakers ; and to call him to account and answer 
him would, according to the standard of those times, 
advance the Quaker cause. 

A meeting was arranged at Wycombe ; but Ives 
himself did not appear. His brother came to de- 
fend the Baptists, and, according to the rules of these 
religious duels, he, as representing the assailant, was 
obliged to speak first. He brought with him a 
speech ready prepared, which when he had delivered 
he immediately left the house accompanied by some 
152 



PENN BECOMES RICH 

of his followers. This was an old trick, and often 
a very effective one. The design was to state 
his own side, and then by his sudden departure in 
the heat of his speech carry away enough of the 
audience to leave his opponent speaking to empty 
benches. It is easy to see how a fervid clap-trap 
orator might be very successful in this, and turn the 
other side into a laughing-stock for the whole 
county. 

But Ives, it seems, was not sufficiently fervid ; for, 
according to the account the Quakers have given 
of this controversy, most of the people remained to 
hear Penn, and were so well pleased with him that 
they were disgusted with Ives when he returned to 
upbraid them for remaining. 

Penn at this time seems to have been travelling 
through the counties of Bucks and Oxford preach- 
ing and assisting the Quakers ; and he soon found a 
more important person to attack than the tricky 
Ives. He was near the great university from which 
he had been expelled for his religion, and he found 
that the students who inclined towards Quakerism 
were treated worse than ever. The vice-chancellor, 
as the Quaker historians inform us, employed spies 
to go among the Quakers and Baptists and lead 
them to express themselves incautiously or in a way 
that might be construed as traitorous language. 

No doubt this vice-chancellor, like many other 
Royalists at that time, may have had an honest sus- 
picion that the Quakers would in the end become a 
dangerous political party and attempt the overthrow 
of the government. They were so radical and so 
153 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

strange in their opinions and conduct, so fearless and 
desperate, that they might become Fifth Monarchy 
men or worse. No doubt, also, the Quakers, when 
smarting under the punishments of the law, used 
severe language about government and authority, so 
that the detectives of those times might easily collect 
what would seem to be very strong evidence of dan- 
gerous political intentions. 

Penn, however, saw in the vice-chancellor only a 
ferocious beast that was persecuting his people, and 
he wrote a letter telling him so, in language which 
is not now usually used by graduates in addressing 
the chancellor of their alma mater. He used thee 
and thou ; for this was one of the occasions when he 
intended to be offensive. 

" Shall the multiplied oppressions which thou conlinuest to heap 
upon innocent English people for their peaceable religious meetings 
pass unregarded by the Eternal God ? Dost thou think to escape his 
fierce wrath and dreadful vengeance for thy ungodly and illegal per- 
secution of his poor children ? I tell thee, no. Better were it for 
thee hadst thou never been born. Poor mushroom, wilt thou war 
against the Lord, and lift up thyself in battle against the Almighty ? 
Canst thou frustrate his holy purposes, and bring his determination 
to nought ? He has decreed to exalt himself by us, and to propagate 
his gospel to the ends of the earth." 

In this same year he wrote a pamplet against 
the Roman church called "A Seasonable Caveat 
against Popery." It was an answer to a pamphlet 
called "An Explanation of the Roman Catholic 
Belief;" and yet his motive for this attack on the 
Romanists is not clear, unless he was trying to offset 
the charge that he was a Jesuit. The Quakers 
were continually being called Jesuits, and Penn was 



PENN BECOMES RICH 

called a Jesuit in disguise for the next twenty or 
thirty years. 

This seems strange at first, but it is easily under- 
stood when we consider the condition of things at 
that time. The secret methods of the Roman 
church to get possession of the British government 
were greatly dreaded in England, and the fear of 
them could at times create a panic. The Quakers 
were so peculiar, and it was so strange for a rich 
young cavalier like Penn to join them, that people 
found difficulty in believing that their oddities were 
not a cloak for some dark and horrid Jesuit design, 
some wholesale gunpowder plot. 

In his "Caveat" Penn belabored the Romanists 
and the Jesuits in a way that in the minds of some 
no doubt freed him from the suspicion of Jesuitism, 
and in the minds of others confirmed their suspicions. 
He warned the English people against their ancient 
enemy, who, from having been partially subdued, was 
now become more cunning and complaisant than ever. 
Her doctrine is the doctrine of devils ; her priests, 
though forbidden to marry, " keep as many strum- 
pets as their purse or lust shall please," while the 
revenue of the Pope is enhanced by licensing under 
his own seal the resorts of these debased women. 
He quotes book and page of the casuists to show 
how they openly justify fornication, perjury, and 
theft. 

Against transubstantiation he argues, in the rug- 
ged manner of the time, that if the bread and wine 
become the actual flesh and blood of Christ by the 
mere word of the priest, "the creature (and some- 
155 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

times a sad one, too) makes his creator, which is 
nothing short of wretched blasphemy, and the Lord 
they adore and reverence they eat." 

Such violent religious controversy as Penn in- 
dulged in with vice-chancellors, Romanists, and Bap- 
tists has long since gone out of fashion, and is sup- 
posed to be unbecoming a Christian. Dr. Stoughton, 
one of Penn's biographers, apologizes for the savage 
way in which his Quaker hero assails his opponents. 
But such apologies are entirely unnecessary. To 
fight and struggle for a faith was at that time the 
price of having it. Toleration and religious liberty 
in the modern sense were scarcely known. No re- 
ligion was then respectable except that which came 
of fighting and suffering ; for, as Penn said to Sir 
John Robinson, " I scorn that religion which is not 
worth suffering for and able to sustain those that are 
afflicted for it." 

The religion of that time was the religion militant, 
as the religion of our time is the religion acquies- 
cent. But it would hardly be possible for us now to 
be so acquiescent and easy if militant men like Penn 
had not secured for us the religious liberty we enjoy. 

Towards the close of this very active year of his 
life, 1670, Penn was back again in London and went 
one day to a meeting in Wheeler Street. A ser- 
geant in command of a party of soldiers waited at 
the door, and as soon as Penn began to preach they 
rushed in, dragged him down, and he was carried to 
the Tower. This arrest seems to have been by the 
special order of Sir John Robinson, the lieutenant 
of the Tower, who as alderman had been one of the 
156 



PENN BECOMES RICH 

court that had tried Penn and WilHam Mead when 
the jury refused to convict them. 

In the evening Penn was taken from the Tower 
by an officer with a file of musqueteers to Sir John 
Robinson, whom he found in company with some 
of the others who had composed the court, and they 
inflicted on their victim an examination from which 
we have already several times quoted passages. As 
we read it now it seems like a most wanton, unlaw- 
ful, and cruel inquisition of an unoffending man. 
The arrest, too, by soldiers without a sworn warrant, 
and the imprisonment without trial are very shock- 
ing to all modern ideas of civil liberty. 

Robinson and the other judges having failed to 
convict Penn with the jury, were evidently deter- 
mined to catch him in another trap. But as we are 
writing history we must not be too quick to accept 
the statement of the Quakers that the conduct of 
these judges was mere vindictive wickedness and 
cruelty. It is more probable that as officials whose 
careers and livelihood were dependent on the Royalist 
and Church party then in power, they believed, or, if 
you will, had deceived themselves into believing, 
that the Quakers were politically dangerous and that 
this young cavalier Penn was aspiring to be a sort 
of Cromwell who would in the end gather about him 
Puritans, Fifth Monarchy men, and other democratic 
and radical sects to accomplish unknown purposes 
of his own. For his own sake as well as for the 
peace of the government the reckless young fellow 
should be suppressed. 

I do not suggest this as a legal excuse for such a 
157 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

breach of civil rights as they committed, but I sug- 
gest it as a reasonable explanation of their conduct, 
fully borne out by the questions they asked in the 
examination. Their main object seems to have been 
to offer Penn the oath of allegiance, which they 
knew as a Quaker he might refuse to take, because 
he professed, or, as they probably thought, pre- 
tended, to be opposed to all oaths. So they 
called on him to swear that he would not on any 
pretence take arms against the king, and that he did 
abhor that traitorous position, which the Puritans had 
so often assumed, of thinking it lawful to take arms 
against a king who was in error or whose ministers 
were leading him into error ; and they also asked 
him to swear that he would never attempt any altera- 
tion of government either in church or state. 

All this he refused to do, so they had full scope to 
taunt him. He explained that his religion protected 
him from the necessity of taking such an oath, " for," 
said he, "if I cannot fight against any man (much 
less against the king), what need I take an oath not 
to do it ? Should I sware not to do what is already 
against my conscience to do?" 

We can easily understand that from the point of 
view of the judges this explanation seemed like a 
mere subtlety. So, while professing to have a kindly 
feeling for him for his father's sake, they treated him 
with haughty contempt, sneered at his morality, and 
reminded him of his wealth and position and the 
degradation he was bringing on himself; and Penn 
replied to all this with a manliness which has made 
this examination very famous in his sect. 
158 



PENN BECOMES RICH 

But the more ability he showed the more dan- 
gerous he seemed, and when he began to talk about 
liberty of conscience, Robinson said, — 

" But you do nothing but stir up the people to sedition ; and there 
was one of your friends that told me you preached sedition and med- 
dled with the government." 

To this Penn repHed, — 

" We have the unhappiness to be misrepresented, and I am not the 
least concerned therein. Bring me the man that will dare to justify 
this accusation to my face, and if I am not able to make it appear 
that it is both my practice and all my friends to instill principles of 
peace and moderation (and only war against spiritual wickedness, 
that all men may be brought to fear God and work righteousness), I 
shall contentedly undergo the severest punishment all your laws can 
expose me to. 

•' As for the king, I make this offer, that if any living can make it 
appear, directly or indirectly, from the time I have been called a 
Quaker (since from thence you date me seditious), I have contrived 
or acted anything injurious to his person, or the English government, 
I shall submit my person to your utmost cruelties, and esteem them 
all but a due recompense. It is hard that I, being innocent, should 
be reputed guilty ; but the will of God be done. I accept of bad 
reports as well as good." 

But his judges were unconvinced. " You will be 
the heading of parties and drawing people after you," 
said Robinson, and he ordered him to be confined 
in Newgate, at that time the vilest of prisons, where 
hundreds of Quakers had already been thrust in 
among felons and pickpockets. 

It was a severe imprisonment, and lasted six 
months. People of means who were confined in 
Newgate could get away from some of the stench, 
dirt, and disease by hiring rooms from the keepers. 
Penn at first tried this ; but the jailers were so extor- 
159 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

tionate and abusive that he left their lodgings and 
allowed himself to be cast into what he calls ' ' the 
common stinking jail." 

It was a strange situation for a man of his educa- 
tion and accomplishments, and one which we can 
now hardly realize ; and it seems still stranger when 
we find that while in this horrid confinement he 
managed to write several religious essays and a very 
learned pamphlet called " The Great Case of Liberty 
of Conscience once more briefly Debated and De- 
fended by the Authority of Reason, Scripture, and 
Antiquity." 

The chief object of this pamphlet seems to have 
been to argue against the steadily increasing belief 
that the Quakers were disseminators of sedition and 
nourished secret designs against the government. 
This belief Penn said was a mere supposition founded 
on nothing stronger than conjecture. The Quaker 
meetings were open to every one ; they were usually 
very numerously attended ; and how could plots and 
sedition be hatched in such great meetings ? He 
defied any one to bring forward the slightest proof of 
any preaching at these meetings hostile to authority ; 
and he declared for himself and his people that they 
held no principle destructive of government, and 
were ready to engage by God's assistance to lead 
peaceable, just, and industrious lives. But if this 
statement was discredited, and the cruel punishments 
were continued, they would nevertheless hold their 
meetings to the bitter end in spite of punishment 

For general liberty of conscience to every one he 
argued in a way which seems very tedious and un- 



PENN BECOMES RICH 

necessary now that we have so long enjoyed entire 
freedom in- rehgion. He argued for it on minute 
grounds of reason, of natural right, of policy, and of 
morals. Persecution was inconsistent with the Ref- 
ormation and inconsistent with the protests against the 
cruelty of the Roman church. It was also a serious 
injury to trade and commerce and the growth of 
population. So many families were being broken 
up and ruined, and so much property destroyed by 
persecution, that the development of the countiy was 
seriously checked ; and, as he usually did in these 
discussions, he gave Holland as a remarkable instance 
of a country that had greatly increased its trade and 
power by granting liberty. He quoted, also, the say- 
ings of innumerable sages and saints of all periods of 
history in favor of liberty ; and he discussed, also, the 
passages of scripture that favored it. He must have 
had books brought to him in prison, or else he had 
had these quotations by him for some time, for like 
the quotations in " No Cross, No Crown," they imply 
a great deal of reading and access to a good Hbrary. 



XI 

REST AND A SWEETHEART 

When Penn was discharged from Newgate after 
his six months' imprisonment he travelled for a time 
in Holland and Germany ; and no doubt Sir John 
Robinson and the other judges congratulated them- 
selves on having broken up the dangerous plans of 
the foolish young cavalier and weaned him from his 
delusion. 

The reasons for his journey are unknown. Pos- 
sibly, as he found he was so seriously suspected of 
political intentions, he may have thought it would be 
well to go away for a time and let the suspicions die 
out. Perhaps, too, his health had suffered, and he 
needed a change. For three years he had led a 
very strenuous life of controversy, preaching and 
writing, and half of those three ^ears had been 
passed in loathsome prisons. 

He has left us no account of this journey, as he 
did of a subsequent one to the same countries ; but 
from the few scraps of information we have about it, 
he seems to have been still following his great mis- 
sion. There were people in those countries who 
were in the Seeker state of mind, disgusted with the 
corruption of religion which they saw around them, 
and already tinged with the first principles of Qua- 
kerism. Possibly, they were not 4t this time so 
162 




NN'S FIKSr WIFK 



REST AND A SWEETHEART 

numerous as they afterwards became, or Pcnn would 
have had more to say about them. 

At Emden, however, he found a physician named 
Hasbert in a receptive state of mind, and through 
him ten other people of the town held a silent meeting 
in the doctor's house. But this strange worship 
roused terrible suspicions, and these unfortunate 
converts were afterwards banished over and over 
again, and stripped of their property. 

It is not likely that Penn made many such con- 
verts on his journey, and his time was probably 
largely passed in investigating the religious con- 
ditions of the people in his liberal way, a study 
which had always strongly attracted him ; but ap- 
parently he did not find much that was pleasing to 
him. 

On his return to England, in the autumn of 1771, 
there seems to have been a pause in the aggressive 
activity which had been his characteristic before his 
journey to Holland ; and from a letter which his 
most recent biographer. Dr. Stoughton, has un- 
earthed in the Report of the Historical Manuscripts 
Commission, it is probable that he was looking about 
for a permanent residence, with a view of marrying 
Guli Springett, a very pretty Quaker maiden who 
had captured his fancy. In spite of the ferocious 
religious controversy, the preaching, the jury trials, 
and the imprisonments, there had been a romance, 
a touch of human tenderness amidst the hardness of 
conflict and the dry spirituality of religion. It was 
time ; for he was twenty-seven years old. 

Guli, or Gulielma Maria Springett, as she would 
163 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

perhaps prefer to be called by a writer of the world's 
people, was the daughter of a very gallant young 
Puritan officer, who at the age of only twenty-three 
found himself on his death-bed at the siege of 
Bamber. His young wife was hastening to him 
through difficulties and perils ; and the story of her 
devotion and his tender farewell, as described in 
"The Penns and the Penningtons," is doubly beauti- 
ful because it is a relief to find that there was at that 
time anything in England besides hard intolerance, 
devilish cruelty, and ribald conversation. 

Guli was born a few weeks after her father thus 
died. Her mother soon, like many others, became 
very unsettled in religion, and could endure neither 
the formal prayers of the Church of England nor 
the whining cant of the Puritans. While in this state 
of mind she met with Isaac Pennington, whom she 
found to be also a Seeker who could find nothing in 
all the religions of the time but deceit. They were 
married, and shortly discovered that the Quaker 
faith was what they sought ; and Guli also became a 
Quaker. 

They were people of means. Pennington's father 
had been a Puritan alderman in the civil wars, and 
one of the court for the trial of Charles I. They 
lived contentedly at Chalfont in Buckinghamshire 
until they suddenly became one of those families 
whose ruin Penn said was impoverishing and de- 
populating England. Pennington was thrown into 
prison for his opinions, and his wife and Guli had 
to wander about as best they could until he was re- 
leased. 

164 



REST AND A SWEETHEART 

It was after their sufferings had begun that Penn 
first knew them. John Elhvood, Milton's friend, 
Hved with them, and he has left us a quaint and 
serious description of Guli as " in all respects a very- 
desirable woman, whether regard was had to her out- 
ward person, which wanted nothing to render her 
completely comely, or to the endowments of her 
mind, which were every way extraordinary." A fair 
fortune would go with her, an accompaniment which 
lovers do not usually refuse. She had, indeed, many 
suitors of all ranks and conditions ; but, as the ex- 
cellent Ellwood tells us, she bore herself " with so 
much evenness of temper, such courteous freedom, 
guarded with the strictest modesty, that none were 
unduly encouraged, nor could any complain of 
offence." A very tantalizing young woman she cer- 
tainly was, and it seems that Ellwood himself was a 
little touched. 

Being the child of parents who could love with 
devotion, Guli herself was no doubt a strenuous 
heroic little soul. Penn could attract her, for she 
could see in him a Quaker hero who feared not the 
face of man. 

Unfortunately the children she bore were not 
what we should expect from either Penn or her. 
Heredity often plays queer tricks just at the time 
when you look for a sure result. Penn's heirs who 
became the owners of the great commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania were the children of his second wife, a 
less lovely woman than Guli ; and to this day there 
are Pennsylvanians who regret that they could not 
be ruled in colonial times by Guli's sons. 
165 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

But all that came afterwards. Let us be content 
that now in the spring of 1672 Penn and Guli were 
married and settled down at Rickmansworth in 
Hertfordshire, far from the dirt and turmoil of Lon- 
don, with its terrible Tower and foul Newgate. They 
were rich and could hve at ease, and they seem to 
have been very happy lovers as long as Guli lived. 

The terrors of persecution had for a time passed 
away. Charles IL had issued a sort of document 
always detested by the sturdy Anglo-Saxons even 
when it relieved them from suffering. He called it 
a Declaration of Indulgence, and in it he arrogantly 
announced that by virtue of his supreme authority 
he dispensed with, or, in plain English, abrogated and 
annulled, for the time being, all the penal laws against 
Quakers, Presbyterians, Romanists, and other dis- 
senters from the Church of England. 

Although he outwardly conformed to the Church 
of England, Charles was at heart and in secret a Ro- 
manist, and his brother, the Duke of York, was now 
openly one. Charles had, two years before, signed 
a secret treaty with Louis XIV. of France, by which 
he agreed to make public his profession of the Roman 
faith, to assist Louis in destroying the power of Hol- 
land, and to support the claims of the House of 
Bourbon to the Spanish throne. In return for this 
Louis had agreed to supply Charles with money and 
to help him with an army to suppress any insurrec- 
tion that might arise among his subjects. In other 
words, Charles, like his predecessors, wished to make 
himself independent of Parliament He wished, if 
possible, to govern without Parliament, and this base 



REST AND A SWEETHEART 

treaty with France was to help him to attain that 
end. 

The Declaration of Indulgence was also calcu- 
lated for the same end. It, of course, relieved the 
Roman Catholics as well as the Quakers and Puri- 
tans from the penal laws, and thus assisted the king's 
secret Catholic friends and gratified the Catholic 
king of France. But it performed also the more im- 
portant function of creating a precedent for ruling 
without Parliament. It relieved the people from 
very oppressive laws ; and they could hardly refuse 
to take the benefit of it ; and that put them at once 
in the position of assenting to the king's power to 
abrogate and annul laws as he pleased. In a few 
years this became a very momentous question and 
one with which Penn was closely concerned. 

But at present, while he was enjoying his first year 
of married happiness, he had nothing to say about 
the Declaration of Indulgence. He was probably 
glad enough to see the hapless Quakers come troop- 
ing out of the dismal prisons. Over four hundred 
of them came out into the light of day and were 
restored to their families. 

Most of the spring of the year 1672 Penn seems 
to have spent in the enjoyment of his honeymoon. 
In the summer he again resumed his preacher's hfe, 
— that is to say, the life of a Quaker preacher, who 
serves without pay, is under no orders or compul- 
sion, and may have some other occupation that re- 
quires most of his time. During his preaching of 
this summer he travelled through the counties of 
Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, working hard ; for within 
167 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

three weeks he and his companion are said to have 
attended twenty-one meetings, and were much grati- 
fied at the increasing numbers and earnestness of 
their people. 

The traditions of Penn which Clarkson collected 
among the Quakers in England describe him as a 
very hard-working minister. He worked hard, in 
fact, at all his undertakings. Though a learned man, 
he preached, it is said, in very simple language, easy 
to be understood. He was not eloquent, because 
under the peculiar restrictions against vanity and 
excitement which the Quakers place on preaching, 
as on all their actions, eloquence in the usual mean- 
ing of the word is unknown among them. 

" He was of such humility that he used generally to sit at the 
lowest end of the space allotted to ministers, always taking care to 
place above himself poor ministers, and those who appeared to him 
to be peculiarly gifted. He was also no less remarkable for en- 
couraging those who were young in the ministry. Thomas Story, 
among many others, witnessed this. ' I had no courage,' says he, 
' of my own to appear in public among them (the ministers). I 
thought, however (on seeing Atkinson's ministry acceptable), that I 
might also probably go through the meetings without offence, which 
was the full amount of my expectation or desire there ; and that 
which added much to my encouragement was the fatherly care and 
behaviour of the ministers in general, but especially of that great 
minister of the Gospel, and faithful servant of Christ, William Penn, 
who abounded in wisdom, discretion, prudence, love, and tender- 
ness of affection, with all sincerity, above most in this generation ; 
and, indeed, I never knew his equal.' " (Clarkson's Penn, vol. ii. 
p. 271.) 

These same traditions describe him as very neat 
though plain in his dress. He usually walked with 
a cane, and in later life, when dictating to an amanu- 
ensis, as was frequently his practice, he would take 



REST AND A SWEETHEART 

the cane in his hand, and, walking up and down the 
room, would mark by striking it against the floor 
the emphasis on points which he wished particularly 
to be noticed. 

Everything, now that he was happily married, was 
peaceful. His days of imprisonment seemed to be 
ended. He had served through them as an appren- 
ticeship to his calling ; he had borne himself in them 
in a way which gave him a standing and influence ; 
and he was now in a position to accomplish some 
really valuable results. In the following year, 1673, 
he and his wife travelled in the western part of Eng- 
land, and at Bristol welcomed George Fox on his 
return from America. It must have been a delight- 
ful meeting for the accomplished, learned Penn and 
his pretty wife. Fox was so unlike them in his edu- 
cation and associations, and yet so full of force, intel- 
ligence, and fire, that he must have been perpetually 
interesting. In his rugged, eloquent way he was full 
of the enthusiasm of his travels, the adventures and 
perils of the wilderness, the strange things he had 
seen, the zeal and steadfastness of the American 
Quakers, and the great increase and strengthening 
he now found among those in England. He and 
the Penns attended the meetings at Bristol and its 
neighborhood, and Fox describes these meetings as 
" glorious and powerful." 

The Quakers were, indeed, at this time reaping 
large rewards for their courageous and steady endur- 
ance through many years. In our time the religion 
that draws numbers to itself most effectually is apt 
to be the one that promises a little social eminence, 
169 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

that seems to be in the line of fashion and good 
society. But the Quaker faith was becoming popular 
because it seemed to arm its followers with fortitude. 
If it could give such contentment and satisfaction in 
the midst of suffering, it must, men thought, be true. 

For this reason religious people in those days often 
courted and sought suffering, imprisonment, and even 
death in a way now difficult to understand. They 
were often accused, especially the Quakers, of show- 
ing too much readiness and eagerness to suffer ; cold, 
philosophical minds would say that, being unduly 
heated and aroused, they found a morbid satisfac- 
tion in suffering which won for them the applause 
of the world and advanced the cause of their sect. 

So many, we are told, from the Presbyterians and 
other Puritans began to turn towards the Quaker 
belief that the ministers of those sects bestirred them- 
selves to call back their wandering sheep and to 
keep others from straying. They wrote pamphlets ; 
and the cleverest of them was called "A Dialogue 
between a Christian and a Quaker," in which it was 
assumed that the Quaker was not a Christian at all, 
and he was made to maintain very ridiculous prin- 
ciples, which were easily confuted. 

The life of Penn prefixed to the old edition of his 
works calls this pamphlet a forgery, because it was 
put forth as a real discourse which actually happened, 
and many people believed it to be real. Its author 
was a Baptist minister, Thomas Hicks, and Penn, 
to counteract his influence, wrote "The Christian 
Quaker," a very dull performance as it seems now, 
but possibly of value in its time. Hicks, at any rate, 
170 



REST AND A SWEETHEART 

continued his attacks, and brought out a second part 
of his Dialogue, and then a third part, Penn trying 
to keep pace with him by issuing " Reason against 
Railing" and "The Counterfeit Christian Detected." 

Hicks must have been getting rather the better of 
Penn, for the Quakers called on Hicks's congregation 
for a public debate and a chance to clear themselves. 
The congregation got the advantage by jockeyship, 
for they forced on the meeting at a time when Penn 
and Whitehead could not be present, and the vote 
was overwhelmingly in favor of Hicks. 

Penn and Whitehead protested and demanded an- 
other meeting, which was finally obtained, and is said 
to have been attended by six thousand people. This 
number seems very large, and may be an exaggera- 
tion ; but we can readily believe that the attendance 
was large, for in the tumultuous state of religious 
opinion at that time there was an intense desire to 
hear these scholastic and metaphysical debates. 

The principal Quaker leaders and the principal 
Baptist leaders were present, and there was one 
of those extraordinary religious scrimmages which 
could happen only among the bluff bull-dog English 
of that period. They debated and shouted at one 
another all day, running off into strange meta- 
physical distinctions of the nature of Christ, whether 
his manhood should be called a part of him or a 
member of" him, of no interest whatever to modern 
minds, but apparently as fascinating to those people 
as a theatre or a bull-baiting. No decision was 
reached, but they enjoyed a good fight ; both sides 
felt better, and had no more to say to one another. 
171 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Penn, however, had plenty of other controversies 
on his hands, for, as that old biography prefixed to 
his works says of him, he ** never turned his back 
in the day of battle." The Quakers of those days 
loved a wordy war as much as anybody ; and though 
opposed to fighting with the fleshy arm, never hesi- 
tated to describe their argumentative struggles in the 
metaphores of warfare. 

Penn had to answer some author who wrote "The 
Spirit of the Quakers Tried ;" he had to attend tto 
the case of a pair of pretenders, Reeve and Muggle- 
ton, who with their "fond imaginations" drew away 
much people after them ; he had to down John 
Faldo, who wrote a "Curb to W. Penn's Confi- 
dence ;" and Harry Hallywell had to be looked after 
because he wrote "An Account of Familism as it 
is Revised and Propagated by the Quakers." But 
Faldo was soon on his feet again, and procured 
the signatures and approval of " one-and-twenty 
learned divines" to his book "Quakerism no 
Christianity," and Samuel Grevil assailed the in- 
ward light, and John Perrot, who had attained some 
distinction among the Quakers, turned renegade and 
attacked his own people in " The Spirit of the Hat" 
and in "Tyranny and Hypocrisy Detected." These 
things and long letters of rebuke to magistrates and 
of encouragement to the faithful in the Netherlands 
and in Maryland kept Penn busy enough for two 
years while he lived in his pleasant country home 
at Rickmansworth, and learned what a charming 
woman his young wife was. 



XII 

PERSECUTION, OATHS, AND CONTROVERSY 

The Declaration of Indulgence, put forth by- 
Charles II., proved to be a very short-lived measure. 
There was so much opposition to it in Parliament 
that the king revoked it within a year after it was 
granted. The mill of persecution began to grind 
again. The machinery of the courts, the informers, 
the magistrates, the constables, and the writ-servers 
started once more on their dismal routine, and 
Penn was called from his pamphlet-writing and 
peaceful preaching journeys to take again an active 
part in trying to protect his people. 

The constables broke up a meeting at which he 
was preaching, and we find him writing a letter of 
remonstrance to the magistrates, and repeating his 
old arguments for religious liberty. " Either give us 
a better faith," he says, "or leave us with the one 
we have." 

George Fox had been one of the first to suffer 
almost immediately after his return from America. 
They had caught him in the trap in which they 
caught so many. They offered him the oath of 
allegiance, and when he refused it because he could 
take no oaths of any kind, they imprisoned him with- 
out trial as a seditious and dangerous person, an 
enemy to the government. He was in jail for over 
173. 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

a year on this occasion, suffering severely at times 
from illness, with his wife rushing about the country 
to procure influence for his release and returning to 
the prison to nurse him. The king offered him a 
pardon ; but the Quakers were always obliged to 
refuse pardons, because their acceptance would imply 
that they admitted that they had done wrong ; and, 
indeed, the pardons were usually intended to force 
such an admission. 

Penn and the leading Quakers exerted themselves 
to obtain Fox's release, and Penn went to court, where 
he had not been for five years. He appealed to his 
old friend and his father's friend, the Duke of York, 
and the interview is significant because of the duke's 
rather fulsome language in favor of liberty of con- 
science and Penn's relations with him on this subject 
in after years, 

"The time being fixt, we found that gentleman as was agreed, 
and went with him to the Duke's palace, where he endeavored our 
admission by the means of the Duchess' Secretary ; but the house 
being very full of people and the Duke of business, the said Secre- 
tary could neither procure our nor his own admission ; but Colonel 
Aston, of the bed-chamber, then in waiting, and my old acquaint- 
ance and friend (yet I had not seen him in some years before) 
looking hard at me, thinking he should know me, asked me in the 
drawing-room, first my name and then my business, and upon under- 
standing both, he presently gave us the favor we waited for, of speak- 
ing with the Duke, who came immediately out of his closet to us. 

" After something I said as an introduction to the business, I de- 
livered him our request. He perused it, and then told us That he 
was against all persecution for the sake of religion. That it was true 
he had in his younger time been warm, especially when he thought 
people made it a pretence to disturb governmsnt, but that he had 
seen and considered things better, and he was for doing to others as 
he would have others do unto him ; and he thought it would be 
happy for the world if all were of that mind ; for he was sure, he 



PERSECUTION, OATHS, AND CONTROVERSY 

said, ' that no man was willing to be persecuted himself for his own 
conscience.' He added that he looked upon us as a quiet indus- 
trious people, and though he was not of our judgment, yet he liked 
our good lives, with much more to the same purpose, promising he 
would speak to his brother, and doubted not but that the king's 
counsel would have orders in our friend's favor. 

" I and my companion spoke as occasion offered, to recommend 
both our business and our character, but the less because he pre- 
vented us in the manner I have expressed. 

" When he had done upon this affair, he was pleased to take a very 
particular notice of me, both for the relation my father had had to 
his service in the navy, and the care he had promised him to show 
in my regard upon all occasions. 

" That he wondered I had not been with him, and that whenever 
I had any business thither, he would order that I should have access ; 
after which he withdrew and we returned. 

" This was my first visit to the court after five years' retirement ; 
and this the success of it, and the first time I had spoken with him 
since '65." 

Penn believed that this Roman CathoHc duke was 
entirely sincere in his professions about liberty. 
Afterwards, when the duke became king, as James II., 
Penn retained the same confidence. He could never 
forget the many kindnesses the duke had shown him, 
and gratitude it seems could easily lead Penn astray. 
In continuing his account of the interview, he says, 
"That it should be grateful to me was no wonder; 
and perhaps, that with some was the beginning of 
my faults at court." 

The duke, however, in spite of his wonderful pro- 
fessions, seems to have done nothing for Fox, who 
by the exertions of Penn and others was finally dis- 
charged on a writ of habeas corpus. 

It was about this time that Penn wrote his "Trea- 
tise of Oaths." It was an important little book for 
his sect, because their objection to oaths was bring- 
175 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

ing them into much difficulty and imprisonment. 
The book was carefully prepared in Penn's most 
learned manner, and was in effect issued by the 
Quakers as a body ; for twelve of their principal 
men signed the preface, which was addressed •• To 
the King and Great Council of England assembled 
in Parliament." 

The argument would not now carry much weight ; 
but as minds were then constituted it was not with- 
out influence. His strongest point was perhaps the 
passage in the New Testament in which the Saviour 
says, " But I say unto you, Swear not at all." He goes 
on to argue that it is presumptuous and irreverent to 
summon God as a witness on every occasion ; that 
it is inconsistent with Christianity, which extirpates 
in man the perfidiousness which first led to oaths ; 
that it is no safeguard against perjury, since oaths 
have become so common that they have lost any 
awe-inspiring influence they may have had ; that the 
form of oath is a superstitious ceremony of kissing a 
book. 

"The use of So help me God, we find from the law of the 
Almains, of King Clotharius; the laying on of the three fingers 
above the Book is to signify the Trinity; the thumb and the little 
finger under the Book are to signify the damnation of body and 
soul, if they forswear." 

The most interesting part of the treatise is the 
learning it displays. Beginning with the Persians 
and Scythians, he goes on quoting scores of writers, 
Greek and Roman, fathers of the church, in every 
age of history, and succeeds most eflectually in 
showing that a large number of the great and good 
176 



PERSECUTION, OATHS, AND CONTROVERSY 

men of the past, especially among the early Christians, 
had the same objections to oath-taking as the Qua- 
kers. A few quotations taken at random will show 
his method. 

" Xenocrates was so renowned at Athens for his virtuous life and 
great integrity that, being called to give his evidence by oath, all the 
judges stood up and forbade the tender, because they would not 
have it thought that truth depended more upon an oath than the 
word of an honest man." 

" Menander, the Greek poet, saith, ' Flee an oath though thou 
shouldst swear justly.' " 

" Cherillus saith, oaths bring not credit to the man, but the man 
must bring credit to the oaths. What serve they for them ? To de- 
ceive ? It seems by this that credit is better than an oath ; for it is 
credit that is security, not the oath." . 

" Epictetus, a famous and grave Stoic, counselled to refuse an oath 
altogether." 

" Quintilian saith that in time past it was a kind of infamy for 
grave and approved men to swear." 

Ponderous oaths, these ancient sages reasoned, 
were unnecessary, because in the end you judged 
of the truth by comparison of circumstances and 
likelihood. The Quakers were unable to abolish 
oaths ; but they succeeded in greatly modifying their 
usuage. As time went on statutes were passed 
allowing Quakers, or any one who wished it, to give 
his simple affirmation instead of an oath. These 
statutes prevail now in most English-speaking coun- 
tries, and thousands who are not Quakers avail them- 
selves of the privilege either because, like the 
ancient sages and fathers, they think an oath absurd, 
or because they wish to avoid kissing a dirty, court- 
room copy of the Bible. 

As a collection of all the ancient wisdom on this 
177 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

question, and as contributing, no doubt, in shaping 
human conduct, this treatise by Penn is one of the 
most interesting of his writings. 

Soon after he attempted another great stroke for 
the Quakers and for the British pubHc in " England's 
Present Interest considered." The present state of 
England was, he said, one of confusion. It would 
be hard to find another kingdom of the world so 
divided within itself on questions of religion. The 
government had tried to force a uniform belief, and 
with what result? 

" The consequence, whether you intended it or no, through the bar- 
barous practices of those that have had their execution, hath been 
the spoiling of several thousands of the free born people of this king- 
dom, of their unforfeited rights. Persons have been flung into gaols, 
gates and trunks broken open, goods distrained till a stool hath not 
been left to sit down on ; flocks of cattle driven, whole barns full of 
corn seized, threshed, and carried away ; parents left without their 
children, children without iheir parents, both without subsistence. . . . 

" The widow's mite hath not escaped their hands ; they have made 
her can the forfeiture of her conscience; not leaving her a bed to lie 
on nor a blanket to cover her. . . . The poor helpless orphan's milk 
boiling over the fire has been flung to the dogs, and the skillet made 
part of their prize." 

The only remedy for this state of things is, he says, 
a return to the original Anglo-Saxon liberty by which 
no man could be disturbed in the possession of his 
property, every man had a voice and vote in the 
making of laws, and every man accused of an offence 
had a right to a fair trial by jury. He goes into the 
details of this liberty. Magna Charta, the old statutes, 
and the Anglo-Saxon Wittangemote or free assembly, 
in the same way as since his day we have had it re- 
peated again and again in histories and school-books. 
178 



PERSECUTION, OATHS, AND CONTROVERSY 

Then he raises his old subject of Hberty of conscience, 
which he argues out anew as a question of good 
poHcy, to give ease to the government from expense, 
and rcHeve it of its deadly religious enemies, stop 
the swarm of paupers and beggars that were every 
day increasing as the result of persecution, and en- 
courage trade to flourish as Holland's trade had 
flourished, by granting freedom to religion. 

He followed up his argument by a sort of peti- 
tion to the king and Parliament called "The Con- 
tinued Cry of the Oppressed," describing the fines 
and imprisonments, the infamous informers, the 
rough handling by constables, men and women 
beaten, carts, ploughs, and crops of the farmers 
seized, and other sufferings which were still inflicted 
on the Quakers. These efforts he was making are 
dull enough to read about nowadays ; but they 
must be mentioned to show his busy life and his 
consuming passion to advance the cause of liberty 
and deliver his people from oppression. 

That he might be still more busy, Richard Baxter 
challenged him to a controversy. Baxter had been 
in the country round Rickmansworth and found it 
" abounding with Quakers because Mr W Pen, their 
captain, dwelleth there." He was anxious, he said, 
to save these poor people from their delusion ; so in 
knight-errant fashion he called on their captain, Penn, 
to draw^ and defend. From ten in the morning till 
five in the afternoon they fought it out before a 
great crowd of hearers, who went without their din- 
ners, so intent were they to hear the hair-splitting 
that would now be scarcely understood, and the 
179 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

rough retorts which would not please a modern re- 
ligious audience. Nothmg was settled ; each one 
claimed the victory, and Penn and Baxter continued 
the controversy by correspondence, and it was still 
unsettled. 

Penn seemed willing to go on with it forever ; 
for after telling Baxter " the scurvy of the mind is 
thy distemper, and I fear it is incurable," he says 
he has great kindness for him, and would like to 
give him a room in his house, " that I could visit 
and get discourse with thee in much tender love." 

Penn was very active at this time, and seems to 
have written many pamphlets, some of which do not 
appear in his works. Several of them had the 
queer titles of the time, such as " Naked Truth 
Needs no Shift," which was an answer to " The 
Quaker's Last Shift Found Out." 



XIII 

TRAVELS IN HOLLAND AND POLITICS AT HOME 

His wife having inherited a house and lands at 
VVorminghurst, in Sussex, Penn left his home at 
Rickmansworth, and moved to this new estate. Soon 
afterwards, in company with George Fox, Robert 
Barclay, and some other leading Quakers, he started 
on a missionary journey to Holland and Ger- 
many. This was in the summer of the year 1677, 
and since his previous journey, six years before, the 
Quaker feeling in those countries had been increasing. 
The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Frederick V., 
and the Countess of Homes had become conspicu- 
ously inclined towards the faith of the inward light, 
and many people were in that seeking state of mind, 
disgusted with all forms of religion, which had been 
so fruitful of Quakers in England. 

So Penn and his companions set out well supplied 
with Quaker books in the Dutch and German lan- 
guages, and Penn kept a journal of their travels and 
success. It is probable that this journal is the dryest 
and dullest that ever was written. Penn's generali- 
ties became more colorless than ever, and when he 
gives details they are uninteresting ones. His de- 
scription of meetings and conversions are always in 
the same general language of great travail of spirit, 
precious testimonies, and great awakening. The 
181 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

mystical expressions used by Quakers are at any 
time rather meaningless to the uninitiated, and the 
lapse of two hundred years does not help to make 
them more intelligible. 

But still, by great labor in reading, we gather how 
they went from town to town encouraging the few 
congenial souls they found, helping them to organize 
meetings like those in England, corresponding with 
and visiting countesses, princesses, and governors of 
provinces, and Penn had not forgotten his old habit 
of writing a letter of rebuke to any ruler who had 
not treated the Quakers well. 

In a letter to the King of Poland he pleads for 
religious liberty and reminds him of a saying of one 
of his ancestors, Stephen, King of Poland, who had 
said, " I am king of men, not of consciences ; a 
commander of bodies, not of souls." This striking 
sentence had long been a favorite quotation with 
those who sought liberty, and Roger Williams, of 
Rhode Island, was fond of using it in his controver- 
sies with the rulers of Massachusetts. 

They passed out of Holland and, entering Ger- 
many, travelled through many of the places whence 
afterwards so many German Mennonites and similar 
sects allied to the Quakers migrated to Pennsylvania, 
forming that large body of people still known in our 
State as the "Pennsylvania Dutch." Evidently a 
great change had taken place in the religious condi- 
tion of the country since Penn's visit of six years 
before. The Germanic mind was growing more and 
more into a state of religious ferment, and was break- 
ing away from the old forms, and breaking up into 



TRAVELS IN HOLLAND 

the innumerable sects whose history in Pennsylvania 
was so curious.* The people were becoming Seekers, 
hke the English, and Penn and his companions were 
eager to find those who were in this state of mind. 

'• We had a good time with him ; for the man is an ancient Seeker, 
opprest with the cares of this world. . . . We set out towards the 
city of Duysburg of the Calvinist way, belonging to the Elector of 
Brandenburg, in and near to which we had been informed there were 
a retired and seeking people." (Works of Penn, vol. i. p. 78.) 

In another passage he speaks of some people who, 
aroused by the preaching of De Labadie " against 
the dead and formal churches of the world," had 
separated themselves and lived " in a way of refined 
independency." These were, in effect, also Seekers, 
though not called by that name. Labadie was a 
Frenchman and a famous preacher. He had been 
a Jesuit, and after becoming a Protestant was dis- 
satisfied with the Calvinism he found at Geneva. So 
he went to Holland and became a radical in religion. 
Penn had seen him on his previous visit ; but by no 
means approved of him. He calls him airy and 
unstable and a mere sect-maker. Sect-making for 
the mere glory of the sect-maker soon became com- 
mon enough, especially in Germany. 

Two of Labadie's followers, Bankers and Sluyter, 
travelled among the colonies in America in the year 
1679, visiting the land that Penn was afterwards to 
call Pennsylvania, and they kept a most interesting 
journal which is now largely relied upon by those 
who wish to know at first hand the manners and 
condition of the early colonists. 

* The Making of Pennsylvania, p. 94. 
183 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Before returning to England Penn wrote four 
tracts, — "A Call to Christendom," "A Tender Hesi- 
tation," "To all Professors of Christianity," and 
" Tender Counsel." They were translated into Dutch 
and German by Benjamin Furly, an English merchant 
in Rotterdam, of whom more hereafter, and by 
him they were published and circulated among 
the people of those countries who were of a sepa- 
rating and seeking turn of mind.* 

On Penn's return to England after this summer 
missionary tour of three months, he found that, in 
spite of all the appeals for liberty which had been 
made by himself and others, the condition of the 
Quakers was, if anything, worse than ever. The 
people had become so thoroughly alarmed by the 
king's leaning towards the Roman Catholics that the 
magistrates and officials echoed this feeling by en- 
forcing more strictly than ever the laws against dis- 
senters of ail kinds. The Puritans avoided the se- 
verity of these laws by keeping their religion to 
themselves, exercising what the Quakers sneeringly 
called "Christian prudence." But the Quakers, 
being a very obstinate folk, made few attempts to 
conceal their meetings or their absence from the 
regular worship of the Church of England. Evi- 
dence was accordingly easily obtained against them, 
and fines and imprisonments were again sweeping 
away property and families. 

A pretence of giving them a little ease was made 
by introducing in Parliament a bill which would 



* Penna. Mag. Hist., vol. xix. pp. 283, 284. 
184 



TRAVELS IN HOLLAND 

render the laws applicable only to those who should 
refuse to take the oath of allegiance and supremacy, 
which was, in effect, an oath abjuring popery and 
denying the power of the Pope to absolve British 
subjects from their allegiance to the crown. By this 
means, it was said, the laws would act only against 
the Roman Catholics, and other dissenters would be 
free. But as the Quakers could not take an oath at 
all, this bill would put them in a worse pHght than 
ever. They would be classed with the Roman 
Catholics and Jesuits, and would be in a position to 
have it said that they refused to acknowledge their 
allegiance as British subjects. 

Penn, as the representative of the Quakers, ap- 
pealed to Parliament, presented petitions, and made 
arguments before a committee in favor of a slight 
amendment by which Quakers should give their 
word instead of an oath, and be subject to the same 
penalties for perjury as if they had been under oath. 

The old charge that he was a Jesuit in disguise 
was evidently rife at this time, for a large part of 
the two speeches he made before the committee is 
taken up in protesting against this accusation, and 
in declaring that he and all the Quakers were in the 
truest sense of the word Protestants, not by any 
means enemies of the crown and government, but, 
on the contrary, anxious to support government 
if they were only allowed to do so in a way approved 
by their conscience. 

He was successful before the House of Commons. 
They accepted his suggestion and passed the bill 
with a clause allowing the Quakers to affirm in place 
1S5 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

of taking an oath ; but before the bill could be 
passed by the House of Lords, Parliament was 
dissolved. It seemed impossible for the Quakers to 
have any good luck, and in the summer of that 
year, 1678, that extraordinary creature, Titus Oates, 
professed to have discovered the popish plot 

The British are a courageous people ; but even in 
recent times they have been put into what seems to 
other nations a ridiculous panic by the suggestion of 
a French invasion, and in earlier periods the sugges- 
tion of a Jesuit plot would create among them still 
greater excitement. Oates, having an insane craving 
for notoriety, took advantage of both these sources 
of panic, and told a wonderful tale of what he had 
learned while he was among the Jesuits. The Pope, 
he said, had turned over the government of England 
to the Jesuits, who had already issued commissions 
appointing Catholics to all the offices of state. The 
present British statesmen were to be murdered. 
The king was to be stabbed, or poisoned, or shot 
with silver bullets. The shipping of the Thames 
was to be set on fire, and at a given signal the Eng- 
lish Catholics were to murder their Protestant neigh- 
bors. And, to make sure of the success of all this 
devilish work, a French army was to land in Ireland. 

Oates was a disorderly and disgraced clergyman 
of the Church of England. He had turned Roman 
Catholic, or, at least, had made professions of that 
faith, and had lived at some of the English Jesuit 
colleges on the continent. He had, of course, heard 
there all sorts of loose talk about the best means of 
converting England ; and as force was then a recog- 
i86 



TRAVELS IN HOLLAND 

nized means of conversion, he had, no doubt, actually- 
heard individuals suggest some of the things he re- 
ported. These scraps of conversation he wove into 
a connected tale of an actual organized plot which 
was to be carried out. He reminded his hearers 
that London had once been burnt, and insinuated 
that this work of the Jesuits would be repeated. 

Circumstances favored his story. When the papers 
of Edward Coleman, one of the Catholics he accused, 
were looked for, it was found that he had just de- 
stroyed most of them, and that those which remained 
spoke of the great expectations in which Romanists 
might indulge from the present situation in England. 
Soon after, the magistrate before whom Oates had 
testified against Coleman was found murdered in a 
field. When we remember, in addition to this, that 
the English people, although they did not know of 
Charles H.'s secret agreement with the King of 
France, strongly suspected it, that they felt sure of 
his leaning towards Romanism, and knew that his 
brother the Duke of York, heir to the throne, had 
actually turned Romanist and married a Roman 
Catholic woman ; when we remember, also, that they 
had in their minds the Gunpowder Plot, which was 
the work of Catholics, the Catholic conspiracies 
against Queen Elizabeth, and the cruelties of the 
reign of their Catholic queen, Bloody Mary, it is not 
hard to understand how they readily believed the 
tale of Oates and were roused by it to the utmost 
pitch of fury. 

The jails soon contained more papists than Qua- 
kers. London v/as put under the protection of the 
187 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

militia, cannon were collected, barricades for the 
streets prepared, every good Protestant citizen car- 
ried weapons under his clothes, and guards sat day 
and night in the vaults under Parliament to save 
that august body from being blown into the air. 

This strange commotion had occurred while the 
amendment suggested by Penn allowing Quakers to 
affirm instead of swear was pending in Parliament. 
But Parliament was now busy excluding Roman 
Catholic lords from their seats in the upper house, 
driving the Duke of York from his seat in the Privy 
Council, and impeaching the lord treasurer for trea- 
son. In the hope of stopping this impeachment of 
his lord treasurer, which might disclose his secret 
treaty with the King of France, Charles dissolved 
Parliament in January, 1779, before Penn's amend- 
ment could be passed. 

The slaughter of the Catholics suspected of the 
plot now began. Oates was becoming the richest 
and most powerful man in England, The informers 
who had been earning small livings by bringing 
Quakers and Puritans to justice recognized in him a 
master of their art. They were soon discovering all 
manner of popish wickedness : armies of invasion 
preparing abroad and secret assassination plotted at 
home ; and Oates, to remain their leader, was com- 
pelled to add new wonders to his original tale. 

In this confusion Penn wrote a letter of advice to 
the Quakers exhorting them to abstain from a worldly 
spirit. " Fly as for your lives," he says, " from the 
snares therein, and get you into your watch-tower, 
the name of the Lord." He wrote a book on the 



TRAVELS IN HOLLAND 

public situation which passed through two editions, 
and was called "An Address to Protestants of all 
Persuasions." The cause of the troublous times 
was, he says, the attempt to propagate religion by- 
force. The papists had such a terrible history of 
cruelty in forcing religion that now the country was 
in a turmoil of fear of them. There never would 
be peace, however, until the Protestants gave up the 
cruelty of persecution which they were imitating 
from Rome. 

" Revive," he says, " the noble principle of liberty of conscience 
on which the Reformation rose ; for in vain do we hope to be de- 
livered from papists until we deliver ourselves from popery. This 
coercion upon conscience and persecution for religion are that part 
of popery which is most justly hated and feared. And if we either 
fear or hate popery for its cruelty, shall we practise the cruelty we 
fear or hate it for?" 

He had now an opportunity to argue again on his 
favorite subject of religious liberty, a subject which 
he was always eager to press on public attention. 
He reasoned on this occasion not very brilliantly, it 
must be confessed ; in fact, with much dulness ex- 
cept here and there a striking sentence. In one 
passage he comes near writing a good aphorism, but 
spoils it with too many words and interjected ideas. 
Freed from his verbiage it would be, " Zeal without 
knowledge is superstition ; zeal against knowledge 
is interest or faction ; but zeal with knowledge is re- 
ligion." 

The first part of his book is taken up with a tirade 
against the wickedness of the times ; drunkenness, 
whoredom, luxury, gambling, cursing, and irrever- 
189 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

ence, which are also, he thinks, causes of England's 
troubles. The very plain speaking he indulges him- 
self in here is interesting as a comment on the 
times. After reading through all he says we are 
left with an impression that two hundred years have 
not added much in the way of excessive luxuries. 
Penn himself lived well even when he was in his 
wilderness colony of Pennsylvania. He liked hand- 
some furniture, good wines, a well-supplied table, 
horses, fruit-trees, flower-gardens, and pleasure-boats. 
The luxury which he condemns must therefore 
have been a luxury far in excess of his own. He 
believed in good cooking, but French cookery, he 
says, was ruining England. 

'< Natural relish," he says, " is lost in the crowd of the cook's in- 
gredients;" and in furnishing houses " it is a most inexcusable super- 
fluity to bestow an estate to line walls, dress cabinets, embroider 
beds, with a hundred other unprofitable pieces of state, such as massy 
plate, rich china, costly pictures, sculpture, fret work, inlayings, and 
painted windows." 

Such complaints, however, have been made in all 
times. The golden as well as the virtuous age is 
always in the past or hoped for in the future. The 
real truth about such matters is that good and bad 
fashions in morals are perpetually changing. Dif- 
ferent periods are virtuous in some things and 
vicious in others. The peculiar vicious fashion of 
Penn's time seems to have been wholesale corrup- 
tion and treachery to one another among the upper 
classes, and reckless obscene coarseness in speech 
and manners, indulged in by women as well as by 
men. 

190 



TRAVELS IN HOLLAND 

It is, perhaps tedious to mention so many details 
of Penn's efforts on behalf of liberty ; but only by 
these details can his character be known. He fol- 
lowed up his address to Protestants by a petition to 
William, Prince of Orange, the famous Hollander, 
who within a decade was to become King of Eng- 
land and accomplish the reforms in which Penn was 
wearing out his life. The object of the petition was 
to ask relief from persecution for some of the people 
Penn had recently visited at Crevelt on the Rhine ; 
and he renews his old argument of the ridiculous 
inconsistency of Protestants protesting against papist 
persecutions, when Protestants were persecuting Prot- 
estants. 

Penn was by nature a public man. His deep in- 
terest in religious liberty and broad questions of 
public policy, his liberal education, his ability as a 
waiter, his long experience in public speaking and 
in directing the interests of his sect in stormy po- 
litical times, besides the associations of his father, 
the admiral, naturally turned him towards politics. 
He would surely have taken a very large part in 
state-craft if Quaker principles had not restrained 
him. The Quakers abstained almost entirely from 
political life, and in many instances even from voting, 
because politics were disturbing to religious contem- 
plation and involved taking and administering oaths 
and countenancing war. But this was, it seems, 
only a general rule, which admitted of exceptions 
when necessary. 

The king's dissolution of Parliament compelled a 
new election, and, with the fears of the popish plot 
191 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

and the hostility to the king for his popish leaning, 
the contest was hot and exciting. Questions of re- 
ligious liberty and questions deeply affecting the 
Quakers were involved, and Penn threw himself into 
the contest with enthusiasm. He was a Whig, of 
course, and he had become a friend of Algernon 
Sydney, a man of very liberal opinions, who was the 
Whig candidate for Guildford. Sydney's opinions, 
indeed, were so extreme that he was considered dan- 
gerous to monarchy, and he had been in exile on the 
continent for many years ; but he had been allowed 
to return for a time to settle his father's estate, Penn 
made speeches for him, and in the midst of one of 
these an attempt was made to arrest him as a Jesuit. 
But his most important effort was a short pamphlet 
called " England's Great Interest in the Choice of 
a New Parliament." 

From this pamphlet we learn that Penn believed 
that there was a popish plot as described by Oates ; 
for he says that the first object to be gained by this 
election is "to pursue the discovery and punishment 
of the plot." In another passage he advises the 
voters to choose only sincere Protestants ; and they 
can know false Protestants, he says, " by their laugh- 
ing at the plot, disgracing the evidence." 

That there was an intention at that time and long 
afterwards on the part of Roman Catholics, both in 
England and on the continent, to capture the British 
government and force Catholicism on England ad- 
mits of no doubt. Protestants were fully justified in 
guarding against this and in offsetting the Catholic 
tendency of their king. But Oates's evidence went 




ALGKRNON SVDNF.V 



TRAVELS IN HOLLAND 

farther than this mere intention, and professed to dis- 
close a regularly organized plot, to be accompanied 
by wholesale assassination, and this is now believed 
to have been a mere delusion. But there were thou- 
sands like Penn who believed in it. 

There is nothing else in his pamphlet which calls 
for particular comment He repeats many of his 
old arguments for a restoration of Anglo-Saxon 
liberty, and calls for impeachment of the evil coun- 
sellors who were misguiding the king. We must be 
secured, he says, from popery and slavery, and Prot- 
estant dissenters must be eased. If this be accom- 
plished the king should be rewarded with increased 
revenues. It is to be observed that he is hot 
against popery, and stanch for the defence of Eng- 
lish Protestant government. 

Algernon Sydney was not elected. He received 
a majority of the votes, but was not returned be- 
cause he was not a freeman of Guildford. Penn had 
not at this time much luck in attaining what he 
wanted in politics. His political party, the Whigs, 
secured, however, a large majority in Parliament. 
This did not suit the king, so he immediately dis- 
solved Parliament again, and there was another elec- 
tion. Algernon Sydney became a candidate for 
Bamber, in Sussex, was again earnestly supported 
by Penn, and again defeated. 

By his efforts to assist the Whig party against 
popery Penn was hoping to show that he was not a 
Jesuit and that the Quakers were not Jesuits. But 
in the extremely suspicious state of people's minds 
there were no doubt many who became all the 
13 193 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

more suspicious and believed his zeal for the Whigs 
was only a cunning cover to his secret Jesuitism. 

After Sydney's second failure to be elected to 
Parliament Penn wrote another pamphlet called 
" One Project for the Good of England," which was 
intended to assist tlie Whigs and at the same time 
put the Quakers in a better position. He argued 
that Protestants must be united against their old 
enemy, and that the dissenters and the Church of 
England must drop their quarrels and present a 
united front to Rome. In the church of Rome, he 
said, religion meant not love of God and your neigh- 
bor, but civil empire ; and to seize the government 
of England was the prime object of Roman Catholics. 

Should not the Church of England then, he asks, 
stop persecuting us dissenters ? Is mere conformity 
to her worship dearer to her than the general cause 
of Protestantism and the safety of the British gov- 
ernment? Is she not doing what Rome desires her 
to do, — scattering, impoverishing, and disuniting the 
dissenters, and weakening the cause of Protestantism? 
Would a Churchman refuse the help of a Quaker or 
Baptist to pull him out of a ditch ? And why should 
he deprive himself of that help in the great cause of 
Protestantism ? 

He argues again on his old subject of religious 
liberty as not only right in itself, but as a wise policy 
which will unite the nation, give it power against 
Jesuit plots, and also commercial supremacy. 

" I ask if more custom comes not to the king, and more trade to 

the kingdom by encouraging the labor and traffic of an Episcopalian, 

Presbyterian, Independent, Quaker, and Anabaptist than by an Epis- 

194 



TRAVELS IN HOLLAND 

copalian only. . . . For till it be the interest of the fanner to destroy 
his flock, to starve the horse he rides and the cow that gives him 
milk, it cannot be the interest of England to let a great part of her 
sober and useful inhabitants be destroyed about things that concern 
another world." 



In conclusion, he says the most important safe- 
guard is to prevent papists passing themselves off as 
Protestants. The test oath was insufficient because 
Quakers could not take an oath, and thus were un- 
fairly put in a position of being suspected of popery, 
and the papists, as the last six months had shown, 
could get dispensation to take any kind of oath, 
whether it was against their religion or not. So he 
offers a new kind of test, which is not a test oath, 
but a test affirmation which can be taken by Quakers 
and everybody who is an honest protestant. 

He gives a form of this test affirmation, which is 
certainly a stiff one. The affiant declares, "in good 
conscience and in the sight of God and man," that 
Charles II. is the lawful king, that the Pope has no 
authority to depose him or absolve his subjects from 
their allegiance, or give them the right to conspire 
against him or assassinate him ; and then the affiant 
goes on denying all the important doctrines of Ro- 
manism, and closes by declaring that he does this 
without any equivocation or mental reservation, and 
that the words he uses are to be taken in their plain 
and usual sense. 

This test, Penn proposed, should be administered 

through magistrates and parish officers to every one 

in England ; and every one should be compelled to 

take it annually on Ash Wednesday, the day " when 

195 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

the Pope curses all Protestants." It would, he argued, 
unite the whole Protestant interest. 

It would certainly, if it had been adopted, have 
put the Quakers in a much-improved position, and 
relieved them from the violent accusations of the 
rabble. Penn's serious proposal of it no doubt 
helped to relieve to some extent both him and his 
sect from the suspicion of Jesuitism. 



196 



XIV 

THE HOLY EXPERIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Almost immediately after Penn's first experience 
in practical politics in his attempt to secure the elec- 
tion to Parliament of Algernon Sydney, he came 
into still closer contact with political life and govern- 
ment. His efforts for Sydney and his pamphlet 
against popery were in the year 1679, and in 1680 
we find him moving to obtain from the crown a grant 
of the land in America which he was to call Penn- 
sylvania. 

At first sight this might seem to be a rather sud- 
den move on his part ; but there is reason to believe 
that the project had been more or less in his mind 
for twenty years. His biographers have usually as- 
signed to him the credit of originating this idea of 
establishing a Quaker colony. But the idea was not 
at all original with him ; and if it originated with any 
one person, it was with George Fox. Even the tract 
of land selected for the colony was not of Penn's 
choosing, for both Fox and the Quakers had had 
their attention directed towards it for a long time. 

Almost as soon as they were conscious of being a 
sect the Quakers had thought of establishing a 
refuge for themselves in the American wilderness. 
Suffering so severely from the laws made against 
them, it was natural that they should have this 
197 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

thought. The Puritans had gone out to Massachu- 
setts, where they were having their own way in re- 
hgious matters, and the Roman Cathohcs, under the 
leadership of Lord Baltimore, had gone to Maryland. 

But where should the Quakers go ? They must 
have a territory and colony of their own, for those 
of them who had gone to Massachusetts were being 
whipped at the cart's tail, and four of them were 
hung. They were worse off in Massachusetts than 
in England. They could not get land anywhere in 
New England. They did not care to go among the 
Churchmen in Virginia, nor among the Roman Catho- 
lics in Maryland ; and the Dutch held New York. 

As early almost as the year 1650, certainly as 
early as 1656 or 1657, George Fox had fixed his 
thoughts on that great region which lay unoccupied 
just north of Maiyland and behind New Jersey. It 
had not been taken by anybody in particular, be- 
cause it was some distance back from the sea-shore. 
But a great river, which the Dutch had called the 
Zuydt, the Swedes New Swedeland Stream, and the 
English the Delaware, led up to it, and it was said 
to be easy enough of access. 

There was a Quaker in those days named Josiah 
Cole, who had already travelled in America and had 
been among the Indian tribes. Fox consulted with 
him, and when Cole made a second journey to 
America, in 1660, he was commissioned to treat with 
the Susquehanna Indians, who were supposed to be 
the red lords of that great space north of Maryland. 
Cole went among these Indians, and told them his 
errand. But they were at war with other tribes, and 
198 



THE HOLY EXPERIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

William Fuller, a Maiyland Quaker of much influ- 
ence, who must be relied upon to make the pur- 
chase, was absent. Nothing could be done at that 
time, and in November, 1660, Cole reported this 
result to Fox in a letter, which may still be read in 
Bowden's " History of the Friends in America." * 

Although nothing could be done, the subject was 
no doubt debated among the followers of Fox in 
England, and in the year after Cole's letter was 
written the discussion must have reached the ears 
of Penn, who was then a student at Christ Church 
College ; for twenty years afterwards he writes, " I 
had an opening of joy as to these parts in the year 
1 66 1 at Oxford." 

It was about this same time that Penn received 
his first impulse towards the Quaker faith, from the 
preaching of Thomas Loe, and at the meetings 
where he heard Loe he must have heard also of the 
plan for a Quaker colony in America, so the two 
great things of his life, his religion and his colony, 
were suggested to his mind at almost the same time, 
or at least within a year of each other, while he was 
a youth at college. 

The thought of starting life and religion afresh in 
the virgin forests of America would appeal strongly 
to Penn and carry him away into boundless enthu- 
siasm. It must have touched him deeply when it 
first entered his young mind. He says it was an 
"opening of joy," and we can easily fancy how a 



* Vol. i. p. 389. See also Pennsylvania : Colony and Common- 
wealth, p. 2. 

199 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

college boy's imagination would run riot with such 
a suggestion. Even if he had not been religious, 
the thought of subduing nature and the adventures 
of the wilderness would arouse the strongest energies 
of a soul that was naturally vigorous and manly. 
But when, in addition, his rather over-serious moral 
nature saw the vision of leading out a persecuted 
people to liberty and happiness, delivering them 
from imprisonment, tithes, and corruption, and estab- 
lishing for them, far from contamination, the primi- 
tive religion of Christ, we can understand why he 
describes it as "an opening of joy." 

In the year 1680, when he began to negotiate 
with the crown for the great tract of land he had 
dreamed of when a boy and which the Quakers had 
so long hoped to secure, he had already had some 
experience in colonial business. New Jersey had 
been divided into two colonies, — East Jersey, be- 
longing to Sir George Carteret, and West Jersey, 
belonging to Lord Berkeley. West Jersey was sold, 
in 177s, by Lord Berkeley to John Fenwick, in trust 
for Edward Byllinge. Both Fenwick and Byllinge 
were Quakers, and getting into a dispute about the 
property, called upon Penn to act as arbitrator. The 
Quakers were very much opposed to law-suits among 
their own people, and wherever it was possible 
peace-makers, as they were called, settled all dis- 
putes. 

Fenwick was dissatisfied with Penn's decision, and 
Penn seems to have been very uneasy lest there 
might still be a law-suit, which would bring discredit 
on their faith. The efforts he used to bring about 



THE HOLY EXPERIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

a settlement seem to show that the avoidance of law- 
suits was at that time of prime importance. He 
pleaded hard with Fenwick to " prevent the mischief 
that will certainly follow divulging it in Westminster 
Hall," and at last he was successful. 

Byllinge, however, soon went bankrupt, and trans- 
ferred his interest in West Jersey to Penn and some 
others to hold as trustees for the benefit of his 
creditors. Penn was active in managing the prop- 
erty, secured a definite boundary line between it 
and East Jersey, and appears to have assisted in 
drawing up, in 1676, a constitution for its govern- 
ment. 

In this constitution religious liberty is established, 
as we should naturally expect in any constitution 
Penn or the Quakers were concerned with, and fair 
trial by jury is also secured, for Penn had suffered 
much from the violation of fair trial in England. 
Many Quakers went out to West Jersey, and their 
descendants still form a respectable element in the 
population. So Penn was instrumental in establish- 
ing somewhat of a refuge for his people in West 
Jersey five or six years before he received the grant 
of Pennsylvania. 

Sir George Carteret, who owned East Jersey, died 
in 1679, and by his will left directions that his prov- 
ince should be sold ; and Penn and eleven others be- 
came the purchasers. They soon admitted twelve 
more to share the property with them, so that there 
were twenty-four proprietors. They appointed as 
governor Robert Barclay, who had become a Quaker 
about the same time as Penn, and he was now a 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

theologian and the author of the book known as 
" Barclay's Apology," which has usually been re- 
garded as the ablest of all statements of Quaker 
doctrine. But he never went to the province. He 
remained in England and sent out deputies to gov- 
ern in his name. Under this Quaker governor and 
the Quaker proprietors a few of the sect were added 
to the population. 

But neither East nor West Jersey became Quaker 
strongholds. It seemed to be impossible to make 
them such. They never realized the original ex- 
pectations of Fox and others when they had looked 
upon the land north of Maryland as the future home 
of their faith in America. There were few elements 
of prosperity in the Jerseys. The soil was not so 
fertile and the general characteristics not so attrac- 
tive as the vast forests and mountain ranges of Penn- 
sylvania. Penn's interest in New Jersey was slight, 
and soon disappeared altogether from his life ; for in 
1702 the proprietors of both the Jerseys surrendered 
their rights to Queen Ann, and henceforth the two 
provinces were one under the direct rule of the 
crown. 

The original plan which Fox had entertained of 
securing the land north of Maryland having re- 
mained in abeyance for twenty years, there must 
have been some special reason why Penn deter- 
mined to act upon it and carry it out in the year 
1680. But of this reason we are not informed, and 
can only conjecture. 

Possibly in the four or five years since 1676, 
during which he had been concerned with the man- 



THE HOLY EXPERIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

agement of the Jerseys, he not only learned of 
the vast superiority of the land which lay the other 
side of the Delaware, but he saw that the Jerseys 
could never be made into a real Quaker colony, the 
sort of colony which F'ox and the early Quakers 
had originally designed. No doubt he also saw 
that if this original design was ever to be carried 
into effect some one man must take hold of it and 
push it through with enthusiasm. He was rich, 
burdened with no cares except those he chose to 
create, and he had inherited a valuable friendship 
and influence with the king and with the Duke of 
York, who was heir to the throne. 

Why wait longer ? After thirty years of struggle, 
ardent advocacy of liberty of conscience, and heroic 
endurance of imprisonment, the Quakers, though 
greatly increased in numbers, were as much perse- 
cuted as ever. They had failed to convince the 
governing powers that they ought to be let alone ; 
they had failed to establish as the universal practice 
of England the old Anglo-Saxon freedom. Why 
should not some of them go where they could cre- 
ate such freedom as they chose ? 

There was also a little circumstance which might 
be a great help. Admiral Penn had never received 
all his salary as a naval officer from the crown, and 
he had lent the crown money for naval purposes. 
This debt now amounted to ^16,000, not a large 
sum in our times for a government to pay ; but 
Charles II. was always in want of money. He had 
an expensive court, and expensive favorites and 
mistresses to keep amused, and was, indeed, so 
203 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

straightened that he had sacrificed his own honor 
and the honor of his country for the sake of receiv- 
ing secret assistance from the King of France. He 
would never pay Penn £i6,ooo in money. He 
would keep putting it off, no matter how urgently 
pressed. But he might be willing to pay it in wild 
uninhabited land. A suggestion to that effect would 
strike him at once as a good bargain. He would get 
rid of a troublesome debt without paying a penny, 
he would strengthen the colonial possessions of the 
empire, and get rid of many thousands of Quakers 
who were always complaining and making an ex- 
pensive trouble at home. 

It would be interesting if we knew exactly when 
and how it occurred to Penn to make this use of the 
debt he had inherited from his father. But we have 
no details at this time. We only know that in i68o 
he sent a petition to the king asking that in payment 
of the debt of ;^ 16,000 he be given a tract of land 
in America lying north of Maryland, "bounded on 
the east by the Delaware River, on the west limited 
as Maryland, and northward to extend as far as 
plantable." 

Penn must have previously discussed this grant 
with the leading Quakers, and discussed also his future 
plans for settling and governing his province. It is 
impossible to think of his not doing so ; and he 
must also have sounded some of the people at court 
and gauged the probability of success for his pe- 
tition. We know from his subsequent letters that 
he secured the assistance and influence of Lord 
North and Lord Sunderland. 
204 



THE HOLY EXPERIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

When the petition came before a committee of 
the king's privy council there was considerable dis- 
cussion about the boundaries, whether they would 
not conflict with the lines of some of the New Eng- 
land colonies whose charters extended them west- 
ward to the Pacific Ocean, and there was also some 
difficulty about the boundaries on Maryland. The 
committee settled all these questions to their own 
satisfaction ; but the settlement was by no means 
permanent. No colony was ever given boundaries 
which occasioned so much dispute. Terrible con- 
troversies and disastrous petty warfare followed be- 
cause Pennsylvania was believed to cut off the 
western extension of Connecticut. The boundary 
on Maryland was litigated for over seventy years. 
But it is needless to discuss these questions here, as 
I have treated them very fully in another book.* 

Suffice it to say now that through an unfortunate 
mistake the apparent boundaries of Maryland had 
thirty years before been made to include a large 
part of what is now Pennsylvania ; and through an 
equally unfortunate mistake the apparent boundaries 
of Pennsylvania were made to include nearly the 
whole of Maryland. If the Maryland boundaries 
were right, Philadelphia was a Maryland town, and 
if the Pennsylvania boundaries were right, Baltimore 
was a Pennsylvania town. 

But independently of all these questions, the tract 
of land which Penn and his heirs finally received, 
and which it was the intention of the king that they 

* The Making of Pennsylvania, chaps, x. and xi. 
205 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

should receive, was an enormous one, containing over 
forty thousand square miles of territory, the largest 
tract that had ever been given in America to a single 
individual, and, as we now know, the richest in natural 
resources of coal, iron, petroleum, and a fertile soil. 
It was the only royal grant in America that was 
bought with money. In all other instances when a 
province was given to a single individual, as to Lord 
Baltimore, or to a corporation, as in the case of 
Massachusetts, no price was paid. The agreement 
of the people to risk their lives and fortune in set- 
tling the province was supposed to be a sufficient 
consideration for the grant. But Penn paid what 
was in effect a very large sum by agreeing to accept 
his grant in extinguishment of the debt due him 
from the crown. This partially explains the vast 
size of his province. As he was offering a larger 
consideration than any one before him had offered, 
he was certainly entided to receive more land than 
any of his predecessors had received. Then, too, 
we must remember that both the king 'and the Duke 
of York felt particularly bound to Penn for his 
father's sake, and had promised the father that 
they would aid and protect the son. There was 
surely no other Quaker whose circumstances and 
hereditary influence would have enabled him to ob- 
tain for his people such a huge and valuable territory. 
On the 4th of March, i68i, the charter received 
the king's signature, and Penn was lord of a domain 
considerably larger than Ireland, and lacking only 
about six thousand square miles of being as large as 
England. 

206 



THE HOLY EXPERIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

" This day my country was confirmed to me under the great seal 
of England, with large powers and privileges, by the name of Penn- 
sylvania ; a name the king would give it in honor of my father. I 
chose New Wales, being as this a pretty hilly country, but Penn be- 
ing Welsh for a head, as Pennanmoire in Wales, and Penrith in 
Cumberland, and Penn in Buckinghamshire, the highest land in 
England, called this Pennsylvania, which is the high or head wood- 
lands ; for I proposed when the secretary, a Welshman, refused to 
have it called New Wales, Sylvania, and they added Penn to it; and 
though I much opposed it and went to the king to have it struck out 
and altered, he said it was past and would take it upon him ; nor 
could twenty guineas move the under secretary to vary the name ; 
for I feared lest it should be looked on as a vanity in me, and not as 
a respect in the king, as it truly was, to my father, whom he often 
mentions with praise." (Hazard's Annals, 500.) 

The charter was modelled largely on the one 
granted to Lord Baltimore for Maryland fifty years 
before, and was thoroughly feudal in its nature. Penn 
was in somewhat the same position as the lord of an 
old English manor. The land was all his, and the 
colonists were to be his tenants, paying him rent. In 
exchange for this great privilege he was to pay to 
the king two beaver-skins annually, to be delivered 
at the king's castle at Windsor, and the king was 
also to receive a fifth of all the gold and silver that 
should be found in the province. 

Penn was, however, compelled by the charter, as 
Lord Baltimore had been compelled by his charter, 
to give his colonists free government. The laws were 
to be made by him with the assent of the people or 
their delegates, which, translated into actual practice, 
gave the people the right to elect a legislative body, 
and gave Penn a veto on such acts as this legislative 
body should pass. He had also the power to ap- 
point magistrates, judges, and other officers, and to 
207 



j niuit^AAvA VAh-vIaaJ 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

grant pardons for crimes. By the charter he was 
the perpetual governor of the colony ; but he usu- 
ally remained in England, and appointed a deputy 
governor to exercise his authority. In brief, the 
people controlled the legislative part of the govern- 
ment, while Penn, through his power to appoint all 
officials, controlled the executive. 

About a month after he received his charter, he 
commissioned his cousin, William Markham, a son 
of Admiral Penn's sister, to go out to Pennsylvania, 
take possession of it in his name, and, until a regular 
government could be established, rule over the scat- 
tered families of Swedes, English, and Dutch who 
were living along the banks of the Delaware. Mark- 
ham reached the Delaware about the first of July, 
1 68 1, and made his head-quarters at a place called 
Upland, about fifteen miles below the present site of 
Philadelphia. He remained there in charge of affairs 
more than a year, for Penn did not arrive in his 
province until October, 1682. 

In the mean time Penn secured an addition to 
his territory. Learning from Markham that Lord 
Baltimore disputed his boundaries, he obtained, by a 
grant from the Duke of York, the land now included 
in the State of Delaware. Penn's object in getting 
this additional land was to secure control of the 
whole western shore of the Delaware River and Bay 
from his province down to the ocean, and at the 
same time to strengthen himself against Lord Balti- 
more, whose claims, according to Markham's account, 
cut far into the southern half of Pennsylvania. 

Penn also, before he started for his province, ad- 
208 



THE HOLY EXPERIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

vertised for settlers, and explained fully the condi- 
tions and prospects. At the same time he warned 
the public, in his careful, conscientious way, that they 
must not rush inconsiderately into this new enter- 
prise. They would have to endure a winter in 
Pennsylvania before they could enjoy a summer, and 
be willing to go two or three years without the com- 
forts and conveniences of England. But, on the 
other hand, the planting of colonies, he said, was 
great and glorious work, and he went on to show 
how it would strengthen England, instead of weak- 
ening her, as some supposed. 

Those who wished to come to him could have 
land by paying ;^ioo for five thousand acres, and 
annually thereafter a shilling rent for every hundred 
acres. Those who had not ready money to pay in 
this way could have two hundred acres or less at 
the rent of a shilling per acre. They should have 
their own legislature ; no laws should be passed or 
money raised without the people's consent ; and 
they should have all the British rights and liberties. 

Penn was, indeed, very busy with preparations 
during the year Markham waited for him. He 
would have started immediately, but could not. He 
wished to take out with him a large number of 
settlers. Many had agreed to go, but they wanted 
time to settle their home affairs. He was expecting 
people from France, Holland, and Scotland, as well 
as from England. In a letter written at this time 
he speaks of his enterprise as " an holy experiment," 
a phrase which has now for a long time been applied 
to it by the Quakers. 

14 209 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

He must have enjoyed the preparations, and 
looked forward with delight and impatience to the 
day when he could plunge with his people into the 
wilderness. And here it should be said that he in- 
tended that his province should be profitable. He 
intended to increase his own and his family's fortune, 
to widen his influence through wealth and become a 
man of power in the world, the feudal ruler of a 
great and prosperous province, which was large 
enough to be an empire. 

This was not inconsistent with calling his enter- 
prise " an holy experiment," nor with his intention 
to establish a refuge for the people of his faith. He 
intended to accomplish both ; to accomplish, indeed, 
everything ; to prove that complete religious liberty 
was not only right and Christian, but profitable and 
advantageous in every way. He would show how 
people would flourish under it in agriculture, com- 
merce, and all the arts and refinements of life. He 
would show that government could be carried on 
without war and without oaths, that the pure, origi- 
nal, primitive Christianity of the times of the apos- 
tles could be maintained without an established 
church, without a hireling ministry, without cruelty 
or persecution, without ridiculous dogmas or un- 
manly ritual, simply by its own innate power, the 
spirit of Christ, the inward light. He would do this 
through the aid of his followers, the Quakers, who 
would never desert him, through his own sincerity 
of purpose and energy of mind, through his feudal 
ownership of a vast domain, and through the power 
which wealth would give. 

2IO 



THE HOLY EXPERIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

It was a stupendous plan, an heroic grasp for a 
whole world of light and truth by one who had been 
living for centuries in darkness ; for Penn was typical 
of his time ; he was the voice of his time crying 
passionately, recklessly, for light after the long night 
of the Middle Ages. 

Men came to him at this time, and said that they 
would organize a company and give him ^6000, if 
he would give to them the monopoly of all the trade 
with the Indians in his province, but he refused it. 

" As the Lord gave it [his province] me over all and great opposi- 
tion, ... I would not abuse his love, nor act unworthy of his provi- 
dence, and so defile what came to me clean. No; let the Lord 
guide me by his wisdom, and preserve me to honor His name and 
serve His truth and people, that an example and standard may be set 
up to the nations; there may be room there, though none here." 

He had peculiar opinions about the Indians, 
opinions which were very peculiar in his time, but 
shared with him by the Quakers. He accepted the 
law of that age, that Christians could take the land 
of heathen savages ; but he added to it that the 
Christians must pay for every rod of the land, and 
in their trade and dealings with the Indians treat 
them with perfect fairness and honor. This idea of 
scrupulously paying the Indians for their land was 
not original with him, but suggested, as he tells us, 
by the Bishop of London.* It was easy enough to 
write or repeat a philanthropic proposition like this. 
Many have done so. But Penn lived up to it. 

He prepared a paper called " conditions or con- 

* Buck's Penn in America, p. 127. 
211 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

cessions," by which his province should be gov- 
erned until a regular government could be estab- 
lished. These conditions provided for the survey 
of a city, laying out of roads, and the last part 
attempted to regulate intercourse with the Indians 
in such a way that they should not be defrauded. 
Trade with them was to be openly and honestly con- 
ducted. A colonist who wronged an Indian was to 
be punished as if he had wronged a white man. 
Disputes between colonists and Indians were to be 
settled by a jury of twelve, six of whom should be 
Indians. 

He objected to giving any one a monopoly of 
trade with the Indians, not only because the Indians 
might be defrauded, but because the monopoly 
would be unfair. For the same reason he refused 
large prices for particular points of advantage in the 
province, because he wished to treat all alike. Some 
of the people of his own faith tried to drive special 
bargains with him for land ; but he refused, and de- 
clared that all must buy at the same rates. One 
who had been thus disappointed reports in a letter, 
" I believe he truly does aim more at justice and 
righteousness, and spreading of truth than at his 
own particular gain." 

He succeeded in getting some ships started with 
emigrants, although he was unable to accompany 
them ; and in the autumn after Markham started he 
sent out three commissioners to fix upon a site for a 
town, and treat with the Indians. From his instruc- 
tions to these commissioners we learn how he was 
planning his great experiment, and what a pleasure 



THE HOLY EXPERIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

it must have been to imagine to himself an ideal 
Quaker town, and send men to lay it out in the fresh 
wilderness. 

He tells them to sound all the creeks on the Penn- 
sylvania side of the Delaware " in order to settle a 
great town, and be sure to make your choice where 
it is most navigable, high, dry, and healthy ; that is, 
where most ships may best ride, of deepest draught 
of water, if possible to load or unload at the bank or 
key side, without boating or lighterage." It would 
be well, he tells them, if the creek coming into the 
river where they build the town be navigable for 
boats up into the country. 

This was his first conception of Philadelphia ; and 
his commissioners had no trouble in locating it ; for 
we learn from other sources that the scattered fami- 
lies that lived along the river had long known where 
was the best site for a great town. The advantages 
Penn mentions were, on the whole, best combined at 
a spot a few miles north of the mouth of the Schuyl- 
kill, which was the sort of creek he wanted, naviga- 
ble for boats up into the country. 

He has told us in a passage already quoted why 
the province was given its name, but we have no 
explanation of why Philadelphia was so called. The 
word means brotherly love, but I do not think that 
was the reason. It was the name of an ancient city 
in Asia Minor where one of the seven churches 
of the primitive Christians was established ; and as 
the Quakers were attempting to return to primitive 
Christianity, this would be a strong reason for giving 
the name. 

213 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

He goes on to tell the commissioners how to lay 
out the land, to "be impartially just and courteous" 
to any old settlers they found on it, to " be tender 
of offending the Indians, and hearken by honest 
spies, if you can hear that anybody inveigles them 
not to sell, or to stand off and raise the value upon 
you." He arranges the figure of the town with uni- 
form streets, places the store-houses and markets 
where he thinks they should be, and directs that 
they should select a place in the middle of the line 
of houses facing the river " for the situation of my 
house." He must have been as happy as a boy 
building a toy city, in the middle of which he was 
to live like a patriarch surrounded by his people. 

" Let every house be placed, if the person pleases, in the middle 
of its plat, as to the breadth way of it, that so there may be ground on 
each side for gardens or orchards, or fields, that it may be a green 
country town, which will never be burnt and always wholesome." 

Then the commissioners were to see that " no vice 
or evil conversation go uncomplained of or unpun- 
ished in any ; that God be not provoked to wrath 
against the countr>'." He sent an excellent letter 
to the Indians, whom he told of the Great Spirit 
who had made both the white man and the red. 



•' Now the great God hath been pleased to make me concerned in 
your part of the world ; and the king of tlie country where I live 
hath given me a great province therein ; but I desire to enjoy it with 
your love and consent, that we may always live together as neigh- 
bors and friends ; else what would the great God do to us who hath 
made us (not to devour and destroy one another, but) to live soberly 
and kindly together in the world?" 
214 



THE HOLY EXPERIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

While he was making all these preparations he 
did not forget George Fox, and set aside for him a 
gift of twelve hundred and fifty acres of land. He 
had also other things to think of besides Pennsyl- 
vania. His writings were during this year all pub- 
lished together in folio, several of his essays, notably 
"No Cross, No Crown," having reached a second edi- 
tion. He was obliged, at the same time, to resist a 
defection caused by John Wilkinson and John Story, 
who objected to the increasing strictness of disci- 
pline. They protested against the increasing control 
over the conduct and conversation of individuals 
who, they said, should be left more to themselves, 
each one being guided by the divine light within 
him. The Quaker discipline had, indeed, become 
very strict. There was a complete system of watch- 
ing and reporting on the conduct of members, and 
those of unsuitable behavior were disowned. Wil- 
kinson and Story seem to have maintained that there 
should be no disowning. The church should merely 
advise or remonstrate. To attempt more than this 
was to drift into ecclesiasticism. 

It was, indeed, a delicate question to decide how 
far the liberty which the Quakers had been so earnest 
in advocating should be limited and controlled. Penn 
wrote on the question a pamphlet called " The State 
of Liberty Spiritual." Like Fox, he was always in 
favor of the discipline, without which, he said, there 
would be nothing but confusion. 

It would never do, he said, to accept Wilkinson's 
and Story's plea, "What hast thou to do with me? 
Leave me to my freedom and to the grace of God 
215 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

in myself." One might say I see no evil in " paying 
tithes to a hireling priest ;" another, I see no evil in 
"hiding in times of persecution," or in "marrying 
by the priest," or in "keeping my shop shut upon 
the world's holidays and mass days," or in " declining 
pubHc testimony in suffering times;" and so the 
society would be broken up and scattered. 

" The power that Christ gave to his church was this, that offenders 
after the first and second admonition (not repenting) should be re- 
jected : not imprisoned, plundered, banished, or put to death." 

At that very time there was plenty of temptation 
to hide from persecution ; for the magistrates, espe- 
cially in Bristol, were bestirring themselves, meet- 
ings were broken up, heavy fines inflicted, and men, 
women, and even children, led away to prison. There 
was more need than ever for a refuge in Pennsyl- 
vania. But Penn must pause in the delightful work 
of planning the details of that ideal province and 
follow his more usual avocation of comforting and 
assisting those who were suffering under the law. 
He had become such an important man that he had 
been for many years free from arrest and annoyance. 
But now, although he was enough in favor with the 
king to receive the gift of an empire of land, he 
was ordered by a constable to stop preaching when 
he rose in the meeting on Gracechurch Street. He 
paid no attention to the order ; and it is said that 
the constable, although supported by soldiers, was 
so affected by the solemnity of the meeting and by 
what he heard that he made no attempt to interfere. 



XV 

GREAT CARE WITH THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 

Before Penn sailed for Pennsylvania he had still 
another task to perform. He must prepare a form 
of government to be adopted by himself and the 
people of his province, and this he did in the spring 
of 1682. 

He consulted about it with his friend Algernon 
Sydney, and there has been some discussion as to 
the share Sydney had in framing it Penn's biog- 
rapher, Dixon, gives him a large share, saying that 
it was at his instance that Penn adopted an essen- 
tially democratic basis, and that so continuous was 
Sydney's aid that it is impossible to separate his 
work from Penn's. But there is no evidence that 
justifies such an assertion. The charter which Penn 
had received from the crown compelled him to 
adopt a democratic basis, for it required that he 
should share with the people the power of making 
laws. 

All we know positively of the aid given by Sydney 
is contained in a letter to him by Penn upbraiding 
him for abusing the Constitution. Sydney had been 
reported, Penn says, of " saying I had a good 
country, but the worst laws in the world, not to be 
endured or lived under, and that the Turk was not 
more absolute than I." This had almost broken 
217 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Penn's regard for him, and the letter was written to 
restore friendship and remind Sydney that at least 
one of his suggestions had been accepted. 

This suggestion had been to the effect that the 
Constitution as prepared was too positive, and ap- 
peared as an act of Penn's which his people were 
bound to accept rather than a proposal which he 
was offering for their acceptance. Penn did not 
think that his constitution was worded in this positive 
way ; but as he fully intended that it should be only 
a proposal for his people's acceptance, he altered it 
in accordance with Sydney's objection, so that there 
should be no doubt on that point. 

It appears, also, from this letter that Sydney had 
prepared a draft of a constitution, submitted it to 
Penn, and then taken it back to finish and polish; 
but whether Penn ever made any use of it does not 
appear. 

It would seem as if too much had been made of 
Penn's relations with Sydney. They have been 
spoken of in Penn's biographies as devoted friends, 
and in Pennsylvania their association with each other 
has been idealized, and Sydney has been regarded 
as the champion of liberty and as a much greater 
man than he really was. It became the fashion at 
one time to name children after him, and there are 
still Algernon Sydneys to be found among some of 
the prominent famiHes in Philadelphia. 

Penn supported him for Parliament and consulted 

him slightly about the constitution, but beyond 

that he does not seem to have been intimate with 

him, and there is no evidence at all of an ideal 

218 



CARE WITH THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 

friendship. Sydney was what in those days was 
called a republican ; that is to say, he wished to 
abolish the British monarchy and establish in its 
place some sort of republic or commonwealth. He 
was a courageous, but a very violent and reckless 
man. He had no constructive or statesman-like 
qualities ; but he had the merit of not being much 
of a trimmer, and he would not fawn and flatter 
when the tide turned against him, as most people 
did at that time. 

He was executed for taking part in the Rye House 
Plot shortly after Penn went out to Pennsylvania, 
and it was his death that made him famous. There 
was only one witness against him, and the law re- 
quired two. But Judge Jeffreys was equal to the 
occasion. He said that one witness and a circum- 
stance were equivalent to two witnesses ; and the 
circumstance against Sydney was that he had written 
an unpublished manuscript against monarchy. The 
outcry that was raised against this shocking injus- 
tice, and the manner in which Sydney bore his fate 
kept echoing among the lovers of liberty for more 
than a hundred years, and fully account for what 
now seems to have been an over-estimate of his 
importance. 

Penn, it may be said in passing, was not a repub- 
lican. So far as we can judge, he seems to have 
been usually in favor of a limited constitutional 
monarchy as the best government for England ; but 
in his relations with James II. he seemed very 
much inclined to dispense with the limitations and 
all constitutional restraint. 
219 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

In preparing his constitution for Pennsylvania he 
consulted with many besides Sydney. We know 
now what was not known to his previous biog- 
raphers, that he consulted with Benjamin Furly, 
who was an Englishman from Colchester, who had 
gone to live in Holland. He became a prosperous 
merchant at Rotterdam, was a patron of letters, a 
collector of rare books, a writer of some little 
celebrity, and very much interested in all separatist 
sects, especially the Quakers, whose faith he seems 
to have for a time adopted. His house was the re- 
sort of learned and distinguished men, and, among 
others, of Algernon Sydney, and also Locke, the 
philosopher, who had been at college with Penn at 
Christ Church. Furly had welcomed and travelled 
with Penn and his companions when they made their 
missionary journey to Holland and Germany. He 
interested himself to procure German emigrants for 
Pennsylvania, and was, in effect, Penn's agent on the 
continent* 

Penn sent him the final draft of the constitution, 
and must also have submitted to him a previous 
draft, for Furly compares the final draft with a pre- 
vious draft, which he appears to have had in his 
possession. He wrote a long criticism on the final 
draft, making some forty or fifty suggestions, which 
we need not here describe in detail, because Penn 
rejected them all. In one point at least, however, 
Furly proved to be right. Penn had given to the 
upper house of the legislature, or provincial council, 

* Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. xix, p. 277. 



CARE WITH THE CONSTITU ITON AND LAWS 

as he called it, the sole power of originating laws. 
Furly said that the lower house should also have this 
right ; and when the constitution had been in force 
for some years, this change was made after repeated 
demands for it by the people. 

Judging from all this, from the internal evidence 
of the Constitution itself, and from some other evi- 
dence which we are about to mention, we can say 
that Penn consulted very widely and earnestly, and 
took the greatest pains in preparing his constitution, 
or frame, as he called it. He was evidently deter- 
mined to have for his holy experiment the best 
government possible, and to obtain the assistance of 
the most advanced and enlightened thought on the 
subject. Exactly what suggestions he obtained from 
different people cannot now be determined. Ap- 
parently he did not take many, preferring to work 
out the problem in his own way, using the sugges- 
tions he received merely as hints to perfect his own 
plans, without radically altering them. 

Among the Penn papers in the Historical Society 
of Pennsylvania are a collection of about twenty 
different drafts of the constitution which he prepared 
or had prepared before he got one which entirely 
satisfied him. These drafts have been arranged in 
an order which shows the gradual development of 
his ideas, and also, we may perhaps say, of the ideas 
of those who assisted him, from the first crude sug- 
gestions down to the finished document which was 
finally adopted. 

None of them are entirely in his handwriting. 
They are usually very neatly written, some appar- 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

ently by clerks and others, possibly by persons who 
were offering them as suggestions ; and some of 
them are arranged in diagram form, evidently for the 
sake of greater clearness in studying and reflecting 
on the subject. Many of them are interlined and 
marked in various ways in Penn's handwriting. 

The first one is exceedingly crude, and creates a 
government by a landed aristocracy. The legisla- 
ture is to be called the senate, and consists of two 
houses. The lower house is to be elected by the 
renters ; but the upper house is to be hereditary, 
and composed of the "first fifty proprietors or 
lords" and their heirs. The baronage of any one 
of them is to cease when his land is reduced below 
two thousand acres, and the rest are to choose 
another in his place. This House of Lords is to be 
always in being, to sit and adjourn at its pleasure, 
and " to appoint all officers by ballot, in church and 
state." This would mean that the Quaker faith or 
some religion would be established by law, so we 
can hardly believe that Penn was the author of this 
draft. It must have been the suggestion of one of 
his friends. 

The next draft in order is in the same handwriting 
as the first, and is marked on the back " Darnal's 
Draught ;" so, presumably, the first one was also by 
him. But this second one is much more advanced. 
The hereditary quality in the upper house has dis- 
appeared, and this house is to be elected four out 
of every county by the proprietors of the county. 
The governor is to have a treble vote in this body, 
and various detailed provisions follow. The two 



CARE WITH THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 

houses are to be called the Parliament, and the 
governor is to have a council of twenty-four, which 
he is to select out of forty-eight nominated by the 
two houses. A system of law courts is also provided 
for, and there are other details showing that more 
thought had been given to the subject. 

The next draft is in an entirely different hand- 
writing, apparently the formal handwriting of a clerk. 
It reads as if some one had taken the provisions of 
the previous draft and written them in other lan- 
guage, making changes and additions. Many of 
the additions would belong in laws rather than in a 
constitution, and, in fact, several of them, such as 
making all prisons work-houses, registering deeds, 
and so on, were afterwards put in the laws. There 
are many interlineations on this draft, apparently in 
the handwriting of Penn. At the end of it there is 
a provision, afterwards adopted, that the constitution 
should not be altered except by the consent of the 
governor and six parts in seven of the Parliament. 

Then comes a draft in a new hand, evidently the 
writing of a well-accomplished man, not a clerk, 
which suggests that during the infancy or the first 
seven years of the colony there should be a govern- 
ment by a landed aristocracy, which after the seven 
years had expired might become more liberal. 

Of the sixteen other drafts which follow we need 
not give the details, because they are for the most 
part variations and enlargements of those already 
given. The idea that the upper house, though 
elected by the people, must be composed of large 
landholders, clings to nearly all of them. Penn con- 
223 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

tinues to annotate and interline. Some of the drafts 
are written in formal clerkly hands, and others in 
hands like what we might suppose would be the 
scholarly handwriting of some of Penn's friends. 
They become longer and more complicated as they 
progress, until at last we come to several which are 
almost the same as the one finally adopted. 

The one adopted had prefixed to it a preamble 
on the divine origin of government and on govern- 
ment in general, rather wordy and diffuse, except 
for one or two apt sentences, which we have already 
quoted in the first chapter. When he came to the 
actual details of his government we find him cling- 
ing quite closely to the forms that were already in 
practical working in the other colonies in America. 
He has a governor, a governor's council, and an as- 
sembly of the people, just as in the constitutions 
developed in New England. The people are to 
elect the council, as in the New England charters, 
and it is called the provincial council. 

The variations on the New England type were 
first of all that the council was to be very large and 
contain seventy-two members. In the other colonies 
the council was seldom composed of more than ten 
or twenty. This enlargement of the council had 
appeared all through the drafts, where it was some- 
times enlarged into an upper house of landed pro- 
prietors, or even into an hereditary house of lords. 
Even as finally arranged, it was more of an upper 
house of legislature than a governor's council, and 
it was given the sole right of originating legislation. 
The assembly of the people could merely accept or 
224 



CARE WITH THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 

reject its proposals. In this notion of developing 
the governor's council into an upper house of such 
importance that the lower house would be com- 
pletely dwarfed and insignificant, Penn may have 
been influenced by the constitution which his college- 
mate Locke prepared for the government of the 
Carolinas. 

It was not a successful device, this excessive en- 
largement of the council or upper house. It worked 
badly in practice, and was so completely abolished 
that during most of the colonial period Pennsyl- 
vania's form of government provided for no gov- 
ernor's council at all, and no upper house of the 
legislature. 

It cannot be said that this constitution of Penn's, 
after all the pains he had taken with it, was an un- 
usually good one. Most of its essential qualities 
were not different from those of other colonial gov- 
ernments in America, and where they were different, 
as in the case of the governor's council or upper 
house, it was not for the better. His governor's 
council, which had the extraordinary privilege of 
originating legislation, and was the most important 
legislative body, had also attached to it the execu- 
tive functions of guarding the peace and safety, lay- 
ing out towns, modelling public buildings, inspecting 
the treasury, and establishing schools. Such a con- 
fusion of legislative and executive powers was even 
in that time a monstrosity in politics. 

His constitution had in it, however, some interest- 
ing provisions. It was the first constitution which 
provided a method for its own alteration and amend- 

15 225 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

ment. This was quite an advanced thought. Locke 
had provided that his Carohna constitution should 
never be altered, and other constitutions and char- 
ters were silent on the subject. But all American 
frames of government are now like Penn's, and con- 
tain a provision for their orderly amendment without 
violence or revolution. 

His method of impeachment, by which the lower 
house was to bring the impeachment, and the upper 
house to try it, was also new in American govern- 
ments, and is now universal among them. He was 
also the first person to lay down the principle that 
any law which violated the constitution should be 
void. Constitution-makers had been much troubled 
to provide a method to protect their constitutions 
from violation, and had suggested various compli- 
cated devices. But Penn was the first one to hit 
upon the foundation or first step in the true principle, 
now the universal law in the United States, that the 
unconstitutional law is void. If he had taken the 
next step, and provided that the courts had power 
to declare such a law void whenever it came before 
them in a case, he would have been the inventor of 
the complete system as we now have it. But this 
step of declaring such power in the courts was not 
made until one hundred years after his time.* 

Taken altogether, this constitution was very charac- 
teristic of Penn. It was an earnest, zealous attempt 
to attain the best sort of government ; but, as often 



* For a full discussion of these provisions in Penn's constitution, 
see "The Evolution of the Constitution," pp. 60, 184. 
226 



CARE WITH THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 

happened with him, some of its idealism was not suc- 
cessful ; and yet in the end, when all was said and 
done, his untiring energy had furnished some ideas 
and principles of permanent value. 

The final draft of the constitution was dated April 
25, 1682, and was agreed to by Penn and some of 
those who were to go out to the province. They 
also, a few weeks later, agreed upon certain laws 
which, with the constitution, they intended to take 
out to Pennsylvania and propose to the people there 
for their acceptance. These laws contained many of 
the advanced ideas which had for many years been 
animating the Quakers. 

All prisons were to be work-houses and places for 
reformation and cleanliness, instead of the pestilen- 
tial dungeons of idleness, dirt, and increasing vice 
in which the Quakers had suffered so much wretched- 
ness and death in England. An attempt was made 
to abolish lawyers and lessen litigation by providing 
that every one might plead his own cause, and, as the 
ancient adage has it, have a fool for a client. Trial 
by jury was carefully established, but no oaths were 
required. All children were to be taught some use- 
ful trade, a practice which the Quakers had long 
advocated, but had not been able to enforce among 
all their members, and they were equally unsuccess- 
ful in enforcing it by law in Pennsylvania. 

Religious liberty was, of course, established in 
these laws ; but only in the sense in which it was 
then sometimes understood, and was confined to 
those who believed in God. Atheists were not 
within the sphere of its protection. Similarly, no 
227 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

one could hold office in the government unless he 
professed faith in Jesus Christ. This was not the 
first estabHshment of liberty of conscience in the 
colonies. It had been established by the charter 
of Rhode Island in 1663, in East Jersey in 1655, 
by Locke's Carolina constitution of 1669, and in 
West Jersey in 1677, and rather more liberally and 
broadly than Penn established it, for it was not con- 
fined to those who believed in God. 

The Quakers were very much opposed to capital 
punishment, especially the wholesale capital punish- 
ment for minor offences prevailing at that time in 
England. Accordingly, we find in Penn's code only 
treason and murder deemed worthy of death ; and 
the property of murderers, instead of being forfeited 
to the state, was divided among the next of kin of 
the sufferer and of the criminal. 

Penn's biographers have usually given him the 
credit of all these very advanced ideas ; but it is 
hardly just, for they were the ideas of the Quakers, 
and he was merely trying to put them in practice. 

There were also laws which reflected the puritan 
feeling among the Quakers. Cursing, swearing, 
drunkenness, health-drinking, cards, dice, gambling, 
stage-plays, scolding, and lying in conversation, were 
strictly prohibited. 



XVI 

FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

At last, in the summer of 1682, a little more than 
a year after he had received his charter, he was 
ready to start for Pennsylvania. For his wife and 
children he left a letter of farewell, which is the 
most beautiful, perhaps the only really beautiful, 
thing he ever wrote. The diffuseness and dulness 
of his usual style disappear entirely in this letter. 
He does not labor to prove dry propositions, but 
speaks with a reality and directness which seem to 
show that his nature was strongest and at its best 
when aroused by tenderness and affection. From 
several passages in the letter one may infer that he 
had learned from experience that this tender side 
was also his weak side, and that he saw the danger 
of wasting one's energy in friendships. 

«' Guard against encroaching friendships. Keep them at arm's end : 
for it is giving away our power — age and self too, into the possession 
of another; and that which might seem engaging in the beginning 
may prove a yoke and burden too hard and heavy in the end. 
Wherefore keep dominion over thyself, and let thy children, good 
meetings, and Friends be the pleasure of thy life." 

Another passage is of interest, not only for the 

natural way in which it is expressed, but because it 

gives us a glimpse of his wife, the pretty Guli whom 

he had married with so much love ten years before. 

229 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

" Therefore honor and obey her, my dear children, as your mother 
and your father's love and delight; nay love her too, for she loved 
your father with a deep and upright love, choosing him above all her 
many suitors ; and though she be of a delicate constitution and noble 
spirit, yet she descended to the utmost tenderness and care for you, 
performing the plainest acts of service to you in your infancy, as a 
mother and a nurse too. I charge you before the Lord, honor and 
obey, love and cherish, your dear mother." 

From this letter we learn also that Penn was at 
that time already in debt. He lived well, and his 
family and the public projects in which he was ab- 
sorbed consumed more than his rather large income. 
So he begs his wife to be saving. *' Remember," he 
says, "thy mother's example, when thy father's 
public spiritedness had wasted his estate (which is 
my case)." 

On the 30th of August he embarked at Deal, on 
board the "Welcome," with about one hundred pas- 
sengers. About eight weeks afterwards, on the 24th 
of October, he was within the capes of the Delaware. 
It had been a long voyage, and, as not infrequently 
happened in those days, small-pox broke out among 
the passengers, and thirty died at sea. 

Three days more were required for the "Wel- 
come" to beat up the river to New Castle, then the 
capital, so to speak, or most important village on the 
Delaware. It was within the territory the Duke of 
York had given him, and he took possession of it 
by the delivery of " turf and twig and water," as the 
ancient feudal form prescribed. 

On the 29th of the month he sailed still farther 
up the river to Upland, where Markham was await- 
ing him, and this village was within the province of 
230 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

Pennsylvania. Soon after landing at Upland he 
turned to his friend Pearson, saying that this was a 
memorable event, and asking him to name the town ; 
and Pearson gave it the name of his native city, 
Chester, which it still retains. 

We have very few details, and those mostly by 
tradition, of Penn's doings at this time, and he was 
not the sort of man to write detailed descriptions of 
his pleasures. But it is difficult to conceive how 
these first few weeks, and, indeed, the whole of this 
first visit to his province, could have been anything 
but unalloyed delight. 

The Delaware was not a river of grand panoramic 
scenery, like the Hudson, but it had a soft beauty of 
its own very attractive to some minds ; and the 
complete wildness on every side, with the immense 
quantities of game, could hardly fail to interest a 
man like Penn. Its low shores on both sides were 
mostly open meadows covered with rich grass or 
reeds, and many of them were overflowed at every 
high tide. Strips or points of moderately high land 
covered with forest trees came down through these 
meadows here and there to the water's edge. Nu- 
merous large creeks stretched backward into the 
wild interior, tempting the explorer at every turn. 
At low water the river was within its bed, but at 
high tide it shot outward on every side over the 
meadows, making vast lakes and bays bordered by 
the nodding reeds and the points of forest. 

The charm of the landscape was the deep, rich 
green of the grass, the dark, soft soil, where every- 
thing seemed fat and fertile, and where animal life 
231 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

swarmed abundantly. When Penn arrived, at the 
end of October, the wild ducks must have begun to 
arrive on those waters. Philadelphia sportsmen 
would now say that he was too late for the close of 
the rail-bird season, and had also missed the reed- 
birds, which a month or so before could have been 
seen on the marshes in countless millions, rising in 
great flocks which crossed the sun like a cloud. 

There were, indeed, at that time prodigious quan- 
tities of game in the air, on the shore, and on the 
surface of the water. The fish swam innumerable 
not only in the river, but up every creek. The reach 
of the river for many miles above and below Chester, 
where he had stopped, was a famous feeding-ground 
for the plover and snipe, as well as ducks and all 
other sorts of birds. In those days there were great 
flocks of white cranes on the meadows, which are 
described as rising in clouds when a boat approached 
the shore ; and in winter there were the wild swans, 
which have long since been driven far to the south. 

The woods back from the shore were full of deer, 
which the Indians brought in every day and sold for 
a few pipefuls of tobacco. Markham had written 
to him, " Partridges I am cloyed with ; we catch 
them by hundreds at a time." Wild turkeys, Mark- 
ham said, were also in great abundance, and very 
easy to shoot. The elk, which in our time have 
never been heard of east of the Mississippi, were 
then numerous in Eastern Pennsylvania. 

The dikes which now protect many of these 
meadows from daily overflow had not then been 
constructed, although it is possible that the Swedish 
232 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

and Dutch settlers that were scattered along the 
shores had constructed a few, or dug a few ditches. 
These Swedes and Dutch, with a few English, had 
for half a century been enjoying a very prosperous 
existence, with their houses on the points of upland 
and their cattle feeding on the meadows or roaming 
back into the woods, which were then, it is said, very 
free from undergijDwth. They had made no attempt 
to penetrate the interior forests. Their whole life 
was centred on the river with what seemed to them 
its inexhaustible supply of game and fish, and the 
rich grass of its open meadows, where there were no 
trees to be felled. 

From a letter he afterwards wrote to the Free So- 
ciety of Traders, we know that Penn was interested 
in all these things. He must have been very busy 
asking questions and listening to glowing descrip- 
tions, as he looked out over the river with the mel- 
low tints of early autumn on its shores and its green 
meadows changing into lakes at every tide. It is 
impossible to suppose that his imagination was not 
fired at the thought that the river was his and also 
the dark unpenetrated green forest for three hun- 
dred miles to the westward. 

He had said in his letter to his children, " Be sure 
to see with your own eyes and hear with your own 
ears," and he was prepared to follow this precept. 
He would see Pennsylvania with his own eyes. 

His first excursion from Chester we know of only 

by tradition. But there is no reason to doubt it, 

and the excursion must necessarily have been made. 

He was rowed, it is said, in a barge up the river past 

233 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

old Tinicum, where the Swedish governor had Hved, 
and where the yacht clubs now anchor their white 
fleets, past that point which we call League Island, 
where the war-vessels lie, and round the great bend 
across the Horseshoe shoals, until the river grev/ 
narrow and deeper, and against the western bank 
it became very deep close to the shore, which was 
the only really large and good piece of high land 
with a deep-water frontage. The shore was covered 
with pines and large hard-wood trees, chestnut, oak, 
and walnut, with large quantities of laurel, on the 
leaves of which the deer were fond of feeding, and 
from the wood of which the Indians made spoons. 
The bank was steep and high, but at one point a 
stream flowed through it, deep at its mouth, with a 
sandy beach, where a settler had already built his 
cabin. This, said his commissioners, is the spot we 
have selected for your city. 

He landed at the mouth of the little stream ; Dock 
Creek it was called, and it now flows in the sewer 
beneath Dock Street. He was delighted with the 
situation, and readily consented that his city should 
be there. Some settlers and Indians were at the 
landing, it is said, to meet him. He sat down with 
the Indians, so the story goes, and ate their roasted 
acorns and hominy. Afterwards, when to amuse 
him they showed him some of their sports, he re- 
newed his college days by joining them in a jumping 
match, and, much to their surprise, outdid them all. 

His commissioners had already planned the town, 
and had probably marked out some of the streets on 
the ground ; but he did not like the names they had 
234 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

given ; so he changed Pool to Wahiut Street for the 
sake of the trees that grew near it, and in the same 
way Winn was changed to Chestnut Street ; changes 
which we cannot say were good ones. The name 
High Street, which he gave to the present Market 
Street, was, however, a pleasant name, and should 
have been retained. 

He planned the square at Broad and Market 
Streets, now occupied by the City Hall, but in- 
stead of its present size, he intended that it should 
contain ten acres. He planned also the other four 
squares known as Washington, Franklin, Logan, and 
Rittenhouse. In the main, the city is to-day as he 
intended it should be. He intended that there 
should be a wide boulevard along the Delaware, 
and we have now returned to that plan. But he 
made the streets entirely too narrow for the modern 
citizens, who suffer much from that part of his 
design ; and, for the sake of what he thought was 
modern and convenient, he laid out the whole town 
on the monotonous chequer-board system, of most 
dismal effect, very depressing to the people, and a 
barrier to all attempts at architectural beauty. 

We have not the full details of Penn's activity at 
this time, and even if we had them, it would be 
tedious to give them all. We know, however, that 
after seeing that the work on his city was well under 
way, he went to New York " to pay," it is said, " his 
duty to the duke by visiting his province ;" but also, 
no doubt, to see the country. He passed through 
the Jerseys, visited Long Island, and everywhere 
preached to any Quakers he found. On his return 
235 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

it has been supposed that he made his famous treaty 
with the Indians under the Elm at Kensington ; but 
this is now beheved to be a mistake. The treaty, if 
there was one, was made in the following year. 

We know, however, that on his return he worked 
hard getting his laws and constitution approved. 
They had been agreed to, provisionally, in England, 
and under them writs were issued for the election of 
an assembly, which met December 4, at Chester. 
The code of laws already described was passed, and 
was ever after known as the Great Law. An act 
was also passed, called an Act of Union, annexing to 
Pennsylvania the land given him by the Duke of 
York, now known as the State of Delaware, and 
then called "The Territories" or "the three lower 
counties." The constitution was also passed, but the 
Provincial Council and the General Assembly, being 
ridiculously large, were quickly amended by the Act 
of Settlement, as it was called, which made the 
Council consist of eighteen members instead of 
seventy-two, and the Assembly of thirty-six instead 
of two hundred. 

Then Penn started for Maryland to discuss with 
Lord Baltimore about the disputed boundary, which 
remained disputed for the next seventy years. Penn 
was accompanied by his council, and Lord Balti- 
more also had his retinue, each trying to impress 
the other with his dignity and importance. They 
met at West River, and the fine clothes and pom- 
pous arrangements of those times must have made 
a showy and pretty scene in the wilderness. Lord 
Baltimore's letters to Penn are very grand and em- 
236 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

peror-like. Penn's are bluff and plain. He seems 
to have crossed Chesapeake Bay to the eastern shore 
and visited a Quaker meeting on the Choptank, 
and on his return he settled down for the winter at 
Chester. I am aware that it has been said that he 
passed the winter at Philadelphia in the Letitia 
House. But his letters are dated at Chester as late 
as February, and this seems to me conclusive. 

The wild pigeons are described as migrating at 
that time in such numbers that they almost darkened 
the air. They often flew so low and were so tame 
that the colonists knocked them down with sticks 
and stones ; and those that were not immediately 
used were salted for the winter. Penn, no doubt, 
saw these great pigeon flights that autumn. 

It would be interesting if we knew more of the 
details of his life during that winter on the river 
shore at Chester. We should like to know what 
the ice did that year as the tide forced it in great 
masses to and fro ; how he and the few famiHes 
round him passed the time. They must all have 
been living in rude cabins, with the forest behind 
them and the drifting ice in front. It is strange that 
those people who for four or five months were with 
him in the intimacy of long winter evenings in a 
wilderness have left no account of his sayings and 
doings. But most of them I suppose were Quakers, 
and to record such things might have been thought 
vain. 

We know, however, that he was enjoying him- 
self, for he writes to England in high spirits of his 
travels, the wonders of the country, its game and 
237 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

fish, the abundance of provisions, the clear air, the 
twenty-three ships that had arrived so swiftly that 
few had taken longer than six weeks, and with such 
good luck that only three were infected with the 
small-pox. 

" O how sweet," he says, " is the quiet of these parts, freed from 
the anxious and troublesome solicitations, hurries, and perplexities 
of woful Europe !" 

Simple nature, he thinks, is better than base art, 
and he expresses the desire he often had afterwards 
of settling with his family in his province. 

" I like it so well that a plentiful estate, and a great acquaintance 
on the other side, have no charms to remove ; my family being once 
fixed with me, and if no other thing occur, I am like to be an 
adopted American." 

In another letter we find that he was under great 
expense, spending money lavishly in forwarding his 
enterprise. He did it all for the sake of the people 
of his faith, and the province, he says, is now in their 
hands. 

" Through my travail, faith, and patience it came. If Friends 
here keep to God in the justice, mercy, equity, and fear of the Lord 
their enemies will be their footstool ; if not, their heirs, and my heirs 
too, will lose all, and desolation will follow." 

He sent presents of beaver and other furs to the 
king and the Duke of York ; and he wrote letters 
to important people. As spring opened he renewed 
his activity. He was again superintending the build- 
ing of Philadelphia, and probably made excursions 
there from Chester. Soon, I have no doubt, he 
went to live in the Letitia House, which had been 
238 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

built for him in the town, for in the summer his 
letters are dated there. 

This house his commissioners had placed for him, 
as he requested, facing the river. It was on Front 
Street south of the present Market Street, in the 
centre of a lot which ran back to Second Street, 
along Market, and included about half the block. 
There were no houses then between Front Street 
and the river-shore. The house was of brick, and 
is still preserved, as we suppose, but has been re- 
moved to Fairmount Park. It was always known as 
the Letitia House because he afterwards gave it, 
with its large lot, to his daughter. In it, I have no 
doubt, many of the early meetings of the Provincial 
Council were held, and it may be considered the first 
State-house of the province. 

Ships were rapidly arriving with immigrants. 
Some brought with them the frames of houses 
ready to set up. They lived in huts of bark and 
turf while they were building their houses, and some 
dug caves in the river-bank, which then was quite 
steep. It must have been an interesting scene, with 
the handsome, accomplished young proprietor — for 
he was then only thirty-eight years old — moving 
about among the people and suggesting plans for 
their houses, while all were stimulated by the novelty 
of the enterprise and the freshness and excitement 
of the wilderness. 

There were none of the severe privations and dan- 
gerous hardships, none of the sickness and famine, 
which we read of as attending the first settlements 
of Virginia and Massachusetts. The woods close 
239 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

round the town were described as swarming with 
animal life, not only then, but for many years after- 
wards. There was abundance of everything. It 
was really a sort of picnic or camping-out party to 
found a great city. Many of the houses had stone 
cellars, and were built of both brick and stone, for 
stone was abundant and bricks were easily made 
from the clay beds which underlay the soil. This 
immediate building of brick and stone shows the 
ease of life and the quick prosperity. 

Curious stories have come down by tradition of 
the pleasant happenings to these people who were 
enjoying an outing in huts and caves in the river- 
bank while they were building their substantial 
houses. A woman was seen sitting at the door 
of her cave and allowing a snake to share her bowl 
of porridge, while she called it pet names. Another 
woman, told by her husband to prepare dinner 
while he continued to work on the house, went 
away sad, wondering what she would get. Then 
she reflected how foolish she was, for was she not 
enjoying the complete religious liberty she had come 
for, and when she reached their cave she found her 
cat had brought in a rabbit, which she served dressed 
as an English hare. Her name was Morris, and her 
family down to recent times is said to have pre- 
served a silver box they had had made with the cat 
and rabbit engraved on it. 

A few of the Germans in whom Penn had been 

interested during his travels in their country had 

already arrived. Their leader, Pastorius, a heavily 

learned man after the German manner, was living in 

240 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

one of the caves in the river-bank, and Penn was 
much amused by the Latin motto which he put up 
over the door of his abode : "Parva domus, sed 
amica bonis, procul este profani." 

In March Penn had the Assembly meet again, 
and the constitution was further amended. An act 
was passed creating peace-makers to prevent law- 
suits, and the session of twenty-one days was spent 
in revising the old laws and enacting new ones. This 
must have been a busy time with Penn, for he felt 
bound to use his influence in all these proceedings. 
His affability, fairness, and frankness of manner 
seems in these first days of his colony to have won 
the complete devotion of the people. The Assem- 
bly voted him the proceeds of all future taxes on 
certain exports and imports, which he generously 
declined for the present. But if he had known the 
expense and losses that were in store for him he 
would have retained this golden opportunity of a 
sure income. The Assembly sharply took advantage 
of his generosity, repealed the law, and could never 
again be persuaded to repass it. Twenty years 
afterwards he wrote of this lost opportunity with the 
most poignant regret. 

He presided over the meetings of the Provincial 
Council, which seems to have met in the new town, 
Philadelphia. It frequently sat as a court, and Penn 
charged the jury. One of the trials was for witch- 
craft among the Swedes, and the case has been often 
noticed in colonial history for the quick way in 
which the ancient superstition was disposed of and 
prevented from running riot among the people as it 
i6 241 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

did a few years afterwards in Massachusetts. We 
have not Penn's charge to the jury, but it is highly 
probable that he charged against the delusion, for 
the jury returned a verdict of " guilty of the com- 
mon fame of being a witch ; but not guilty in manner 
and form as she stands indicted." 

In June of this year, 1683, it is probable that he 
made the treaty with the Indians which has become 
so famous. There were two treaties or purchases of 
land made with them that month, one on the 23d, 
and one on the 25th, and there was also a third one 
on July 14. It was probably the one on June 23 
which has aroused the tradition on which so much 
imagination has been expended. The document or 
words of the treaty have not been preserved. In 
fact, the treaty, so called, was like most of Penn's 
dealings with the Indians, merely a purchase of land 
at which certain things were said. He thought 
nothing of it at the time, for he had adopted the 
principle of dealing fairly with the Indians and pay- 
ing them a full and fair price for all their land as he 
or his province wanted it ; and he carried out this 
principle in all his negotiations with them. 

The usual description of this treaty as a formal 
function, at which the chiefs assembled under the 
great elm at Kensington on the river-shore just 
above Philadelphia, Penn appearing with a sky-blue 
sash around his waist, and all making wonderful 
speeches, conscious that they were doing a great 
thing, is all pure imagination and fiction. There is 
no record or proof whatever of anything of the 
kind. The speech usually assigned to Penn on 
242 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

that occasion is now known to have been made 
twenty years afterwards. If such a treaty was 
made as is supposed to have been made, it was a 
mere business transaction in the purchase of land, 
like many that were made about that period and 
afterwards. 

Benjamin West's painting of the scene, which has 
been so often reproduced, is largely responsible for 
the growth of this treaty myth. Writers have taken 
the picture as a fact and written up to it. Histori- 
cally considered, the picture is all wrong. West 
merely guessed or supposed that there had been 
such a scene. Penn, who at that time, according 
to all the accounts we have of him, was a vigorous 
young man of thirty-eight, is represented as fat, 
short, and old ; and he and his companions are 
dressed in clothes which were not worn until nearly 
half a century afterwards. 

On one point, however, there is no question. The 
Indians always retained a distinct tradition of a 
treaty of some sort with Penn, or rather of some 
promises he had made which he always kept ; and 
his keeping them was the great point. It is sup- 
posed that Penn refers to these promises in his letter 
to the Free Society of Traders, written August i6, 
of that year, 1683, about two months after the land 
purchase of June 23. 

" When the purchase was agreed, great promises passed between 
us, of kindness and good neighbourhood, and that the Indians and 
English must live in love as long as the sun gave light : which 
done, another made a speech to the Indians, in the name of all the 
Sachamakan, or kings, first to tell them what was done; next, to 
243 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

charge and command them to love the Christians, and particularly 
live in peace with me and the people under my government. That 
many governors had been in the river, but that no governor had 
come himself to live and stay here before; and having now such an 
one that had treated them well, they should never do him or his any 
wrong. At every sentence of which they shouted, and said, Amen, 
in their way." 

We have the records of speeches made by the 
Indians at treaties many years afterwards, in which 
they refer to these promises made of old by Penn ; 
and their description of the promises closely re- 
sembles what Penn describes in his letter to the So- 
ciety of Traders. The Indians said that they often 
assembled in the r^oods and spread out a blanket, 
on which they laid all the words of Penn, that they 
might go over them and refresh their memories. 
By this they meant that they laid on the blanket the 
belts of wampum, each of which represented a 
clause of the promises or treaty. Each belt had 
been originally given to an Indian, with the clause 
he was to remember ; and it was in this way that 
they preserved what civilized nations preserve in 
documents. 

The substance of the promises was merely that the 
Indians were to be treated fairly and not defrauded. 
There was nothing wonderful in this. Such treaties 
had been made before with Indians and with savages 
of all sorts from the dawn of history. Almost thirty 
years before Penn's arrival, when the Swedes con- 
trolled the Delaware, their governor, Rising, had made 
a treaty with the Indians with similar promises. Soon 
afterwards the Quakers of Burlington, New Jersey, 
made the same sort of treaty of friendship. Penn 
244 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

was doing nothing remarkable, nothing which re- 
quired a formal celebration or the exhibition of him- 
self in a sky-blue sash ; and no one at the time 
thought of these land purchases or treaties as in any- 
way wonderful. 

It was after-events and not the treaty itself which 
made it famous. The Indians had often before and 
often after heard fair promises. But Penn kept his, 
not merely in his own opinion or in the opinion of 
his followers, but in the opinion of the Indians. As 
ten, fifteen, twenty, and thirty years rolled by, and 
the Indians found every word of the treaty fulfilled 
by Mignon, as the Delawares called him, or Onas, 
as he was called by the Iroquois, the fame of the one 
white man and Christian who could keep his faith 
with the savage spread far and wide, and the savage 
sent it across the Atlantic. 

In France and on the continent of Europe the 
great men and writers seized upon it as the most re- 
markable occurrence of the age. To these men, 
brought up under Latin Christianity and accustomed 
to the atrocities and horrors inflicted by Cortes 
and Pizarro on the natives of South America, the 
thought of a Christian keeping his promise inviolate 
for forty years with heathen Indians was idealism 
realized. It was like refreshment in a great weary 
desert. Who was the man, and what queer sort of 
Christian was he that he kept his word with the 
heathen; that he had done what had never been 
done before, and what it was supposed never would 
be done ? 

Voltaire was delighted. From that time he loved 
245 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

the Quakers, and even thought of going to Pennsyl- 
vania to live among them. Soon he wrote of the 
great treaty the immortal sentence, " This was the 
only treaty between these people and the Christians 
that was not ratified by an oath and that was never 
broken." 

Raynal said, — 

" Here it is the mind rests with pleasure upon modem history and 
feels some kind of compensation for the disgust, melancholy, and 
horror which the whole of it, but particularly that of the European 
settlement in America, inspires." 

No other part of Penn's career gave him such 
fame, so wide-spread and so well deserved, as this. 
He stood alone and supreme, and, so far as the 
United States is concerned, he has stood alone ever 
since. No one of us, certainly not our government 
at Washington, has ever kept its faith with the In- 
dians for a stretch of forty years. 

In Penn's case the period was even longer than 
that in the good results that followed from his con- 
duct. Pennsylvania was at peace with the Indians 
not only during his lifetime, but for long after his 
death ; in fact, for almost seventy-five years, or until 
the French and Indian Wars, which began in 1755. 
This gave the province an enormous advantage over 
the other colonies, which were continually harassed 
and checked in their growth by Indian hostilities, so 
that Pennsylvania, which was founded long after 
most of them, caught up to and surpassed nearly all 
in population and material prosperity. When the 
French war began, in 1755, the frontier population 
246 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

of Pennsylvania were almost without weapons, and 
so unaccustomed to warfare that the first invaders 
swept everything before them.* 

The first settlers of Pennsylvania, either because 
they were Quakers, or through the influence of Penn, 
seem to have been on the most friendly terms with 
the Indians. From the letters of the time we learn 
that they were received by both the Swedes and the 
Indians with a very hearty welcome. Indians meet- 
ing children in the woods directed them home, that 
they might not be lost. 

" And their parents, about that time, going to the yearly meeting, 
and leaving a young family at home, the Indians would come every 
day to see that nothing was amiss among them." 

Richard Townsend, one of the first settlers, gives 
Penn the credit for this mildness of the Indians, 

" As our worthy proprietor treated the Indians with extraordinary 
humanity, they became very civil and loving to us, and brought in 
abundance of venison. As in other countries the Indians were exas- 
perated by hard treatment, which hath been the foundation of much 
bloodshed, the contrary treatment here hath produced their love and 
affection." (Proud's History of Pennsylvania, vol. i. p. 229.) 

A letter written by Penn in the summer of that 
year, 1683, after he had finished the land purchases 
from the Indians, reports that fifty sail of vessels had 
arrived within the past year, about eighty houses had 
been built in Philadelphia, and about three hundred 
farms laid out round the town. It is supposed that 
about three thousand immigrants had arrived. 

* For a full discussion of this subject, see " Pennsylvania : Colony 
and Commonwealth," chap. vii. 

247 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

This was very gratifying success ; and while he 
was enjoying it, he was amused to hear that in Eng- 
land he was reported to have died in his province 
and confessed himself a Jesuit. To familiarize him- 
self more thoroughly with his friends, the Indians, 
and with the resources of his delightful colony, this 
unarmed Quaker made an extended journey on 
horseback into the interior, reaching, it is supposed, 
the Susquehanna River. In a printed paper called 
" Proposals for a Second Settlement in the Province 
of Pennsylvania," now in the American Philosophical 
Society, he seems to be describing what he had seen 
on this journey, and he speaks of the large herds of 
elk on the Susquehanna. He also seems to refer to 
this journey in his " Further Account of the Prov- 
ince," written in 1685. He lived in the Indians' 
wigwams, and learned much of their language and 
customs. It is to be regretted that he did not keep 
a minute journal of this tour. We know only, from 
a chance passage in Oldmixon,* that he went, and 
the time and length of his journey is uncertain. 

He summed up, however, all that he knew of the 
province in a long letter to the Free Society of 
Traders, which was published and translated into 
several languages. This society was a corporation 
which he had had organized to encourage settlers 
and development ; but it was never successful. His 
letter, however, is very interesting. It shows a most 
keen and careful observation, and a passionate 



* British Empire in America, vol. i. p. l6l. See also Buck's 
Penn in America, p. 132. 

248 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

fondness for the province, which is one of many 
incidents that convince us that it would have been 
much better if he had always lived in the colony 
and governed it in person. It would have been a 
better commonwealth, closer to his ideals, and his 
personal government would have been a most inter- 
esting chapter in human history. 

His descriptions of the climate, soil, trees, and 
various conditions almost startle the modern reader 
in their absolute accuracy. He was evidently a 
great lover of nature. This we might have already 
inferred from many of his maxims and from his liv- 
ing so much in the country in England. But this 
letter to the Society of Traders shows a very ardent 
love and a great deal of knowledge of natural things, 
which was not to be expected from a man who had 
spent so much time on theology, languages, and the 
biographies of Greeks, Romans, and the fathers of 
the church. 

He describes with great particularity the trees and 
the plants which we find in the woods to-day. We 
learn from him that the climate has not changed, 
either in winter or in summer. He tells us what we 
learn also from other sources, and what surprised 
him very much, that the woods were then quite open 
and free from underbrush. In another letter he says 
that a coach could be driven through them for twenty 
miles round Philadelphia ; and in a letter to Lord 
Sunderland he speaks of " many open spaces that 
have been old Indian fields." With not a little 
pride, he tells the Society of Traders that the whole 
royal navy could be laid up in one of the large creeks 
249 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

that flowed into his mighty Delaware. He gives 
much space to the Indians and their customs, which 
he had studied minutely. They would never give 
any trouble. It was the easiest thing in the world 
to manage them. Simply be just. He tells us of 
the elk and all the animals of the woods, the wild 
turkeys, the pheasants, the pigeons, the swans, 
brant, ducks, snipe, and curlews in vast numbers ; the 
large oysters down the bay ; and he enumerates the 
shad and all the fish we have long known in the river. 
When he makes his only mistake it is not his own, 
but because he quotes the report of others, as when 
he writes, "Some say salmon above the Falls." * 

He was determined to enjoy to the full the wild 
nature which he took so much pleasure in describing, 
and he had a country place, which he called Penns- 
bury, laid out for himself on the river about twenty 
miles above Philadelphia, near where Bristol now 
stands. But as it was scarcely finished in time for 
him to live there during this visit we must defer the 
description of it to another chapter. 

Soon after writing the letter to the Society of 
Traders he had to return to England. The most 
pressing reason for his going seems to have been the 
controversy with Lord Baltimore about the Mary- 
land boundary. They had failed to agree on a 
compromise, and the question must be argued before 
the Committee of Trades and Plantations of the 
Privy Council. Lord Baltimore had already set out, 



* The Falls were the rapids in the Delaware where Trenton now 
stands. 

250 



FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 

concealing his departure from Penn so as to get the 
start of him and make interest before he arrived. 

Penn also had a reason for returning in his desire 
to see his family again. He may possibly have been 
influenced by the thought that he ought to return to 
his old life of protecting the Quakers from persecu- 
tion in England. He received from one of his old 
friends, William Crisp, a whining letter, such as over- 
good people sometimes write, telling him in a sort of 
indirect way that he was neglecting the interest of 
truth and the testimony of God for the sake of gov- 
erning a colony, and rather implying that he was 
seeking his own selfish interests. 

But Penn had, I think, too much sense to be led 
by anything this pious goose would say to him. In 
any event, he had to go home for the boundary dis- 
pute, and leave the wholesome pleasures and inter- 
ests of his province, which would have been better 
and always was the better for his immediate presence. 
So home he sailed, August i6, 1684, on a little ship 
of a kind called in those days a ketch. She was 
not so slow, however, for her size and the times, for 
she made the passage in seven weeks. 



XVII 

RETURNS TO ENGLAND AND BECOMES A COURTIER 

When he arrived in England the officious Stephen 
Crisp was quick to inform him of the talk among 
the Quakers that he had sanctioned military pro- 
ceedings in Pennsylvania, was growing very rich, 
had deprived the Swedes of their land, and other 
tales which always delight the gossips of both 
sexes. But Penn took notice of such stuff only 
to deny it. More important matters demanded his 
attention. 

He found his people as hard pressed by the laws 
as ever. He talked to the king and the duke only 
to find them sour and stern. They believed that 
the opposition which made their government uneasy 
came from dissenters of all sorts, and they would 
make such people yield or break them. Under 
these circumstances Penn found himself in a curious 
position. 

" One day I was received well at court as proprietor and governor 
of a province of the crown and the next taken up at a meeting by 
Hilton and Collingwood and the third smoakt and informed of for 
meeting with the men of the whig stamp." 

In leaving Pennsylvania he had, with characteristic 
carelessness, neglected to bring with him the most 
important papers in the boundary case ; or, rather, 
he had instructed one of his servants to bring them, 

252 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

and neglected to see that he did it before saihng. 
He wrote a very angry letter on the subject, for the 
delay of many months in sending across the ocean 
for the papers was both exasperating and dangerous. 
Meantime, he comforted himself by writing instruc- 
tions for improving his country seat, Pennsbury, 
which he had taken such pleasure in establishing 
in the province. He took great delight in sending 
out seeds for Ralph, the gardener, and in writing 
all manner of directions to his steward, James Har- 
rison, whom he had left in charge of the place. 
Among other things he sent him wine and beer, 
some to be sold for his account and the rest to be 
stored at Pennsbury to improve by age. 

For serious public occupation he set to work on 
his old subject, liberty of conscience. There was 
no use in arguing or striving for a general liberty 
with the government in such a morose temper. " I 
therefore," he says, "'sought out some bleeding 
cases, which was not hard to do." One in particular 
he devoted himself to, the case of Richard Vickris, 
a very quiet man who was under sentence of death 
for his religion, for refusing to swear, and for vio- 
lating statutes for the suppression of dissenters, 
Penn appealed on his behalf to the duke, and the 
duke to the king ; and Penn succeeded. Vickris 
was pardoned. 

Penn relates that he had to proceed carefully in 
public matters, lest by offending the government he 
might injure his case against Lord Baltimore. But 
he went so far as to write out an argument to show 
that in the violent party heats, and the factions into 
253 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

which the kingdom was nearly equally divided, the 
crown should gratify neither extreme party, but rule 
wisely over all. This argument he presented to the 
king in manuscript, for the times, he tells us, were 
" too set and rough for print ;" and they must have, 
indeed, been very rough if Penn was unwilling to 
print his opinions. 

In the winter of 1684-85 Charles II. died of a 
stroke of apoplexy, as most historians tell us. But 
Bishop Burnet always insisted on believing that he 
was poisoned by the Jesuits because he was on the 
eve of breaking away from them and allowing some 
liberal reforms. We cannot, however, discuss here 
the bishop's interesting proofs on this subject. The 
gay, careless king was dead, and his brother, the 
Roman Catholic Duke of York, took the throne as 
James II. 

Penn wrote an account of these events to Thomas 
Lloyd, in Pennsylvania, and in this letter mentioned 
that he had thus far lost by the province ^3000, 
while the speculators who had bought land from 
him were growing rich. The next year he an- 
nounces that he has lost ^^5000. He hoped, how- 
ever, to return to his colony in the autumn. 

With his own particular friend and his father's 
friend, the Duke of York, on the throne, Penn was 
in a stronger and more influential position than 
ever. He could now go directly to the crown for 
favors, and be tolerably well assured of success. 
But there was in this intimacy and success, as we 
shall soon see, a great danger. James II. was by 
no means disposed to keep his Romanism a secret, 
254 




; II., DUKK Ol' YO 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

as his brother had done. His whole family went 
openly to mass, and he himself began to advance 
the cause of his religion by allowing the Jesuits to 
build a college in London. He sent an ambassador 
to Rome, and received one from the Pope. How 
long would the English people, who dreaded the 
Pope and his religion more than they dreaded 
France or the plague, endure such a king? And 
what would happen to the Quaker, already sus- 
pected of Jesuitism, who was his favorite? 

But Penn was not much accustomed to calculating 
on risks of this kind ; and it is easy to see how in 
the first instance he was led into closer relations with 
James. He expected from him religious liberty, and 
great relief to the Quakers. James promised this, 
and spoke so beautifully about liberty that he 
seemed to be putting Protestants and Whigs to 
shame. Within a year or so he was as good as his 
word. The Quakers had sent him a petition show- 
ing that thirteen hundred of their faith were then in 
prison, and that in the last five years hundreds of 
them had died of prison hardships. Within a year, 
by a proclamation of King James, they were every 
one set at liberty, along with all the other dissenters, 
and a large number of Roman Catholics, who were 
in prison for their religion. 

We are not informed of the exact number of these 
prisoners at this time ; but as there were about thir- 
teen hundred Quakers, there must have been at 
least as many more of other sects ; so that we can 
say that several thousand came trooping out of 
the noisome pest-houses in which they had been 
255 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

confined, and fathers and brothers, even sisters, 
wives, and mothers, were restored to their famiHes. 
It was a strange condition of society which we now 
can scarcely understand, such a jail delivery as this 
of people who had been imprisoned for years for 
nothing but their religion. There was great rejoicing 
all over England, especially among the Quakers, 
who at their next annual meeting in London saw 
the faces of valued friends, some of whom, accord- 
ing to their historian, Gough, had been in prison 
" twelve or fifteen years and upward." 

Penn's biographers have been inclined to describe 
this wonderful delivery in such a way that the reader 
infers that Penn was the cause of it. But this is 
hardly fair to the reader or to Penn. The delivery 
was part of a deep policy adopted by the king. He 
wanted to deliver the people of his own religion. 
He could not very well deliver them without deliver- 
ing all the others, and in delivering others he thought 
he would win them to his side and accomplish cer- 
tain purposes he had in view. What part Penn had 
in the delivery, or whether he had any, cannot now 
be determined. But there is no doubt that, along 
with others, he had for years been advocating such a 
delivery, and we can easily believe that he worked 
hard for his own thirteen hundred. Was he not, 
therefore, more than ever bound by gratitude, poHcy, 
and every other tie to the king, who had done more 
for the Quakers than his predecessor, who passed for 
a Protestant. 

Gerard Croese, the historian of the Quakers, has 
described for us Penn's intimacy with the king. 
256 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

" William Penn was greatly in favor with the king— the Quaker's 
sole patron at court— on whom the hateful eyes of his enemies were 
intent. The king loved him as a singular and entire friend, and im- 
parted to liim many of his secrets and counsels. He often honored 
him with his company in private, discoursing with him of various 
affairs, and that, not for one, but many hours together, and delaying 
to hear the best of his peers who at the same time were waiting for 
an audience. One of these being envious, and impatient of delay, 
and taking it as an affront to see the other more regarded than him- 
self, adventured to take the freedom to tell his majesty, that when he 
met with Penn he thought little of his nobility. The king made no 
other reply, than that Penn always talked ingenuously, and he heard 
him willingly." (" General History of the Quakers," p. io6.) 

But a horrible thing occurred which one might 
suppose would try Penn to the utmost. The young 
Duke of Monmouth, the attractive and accomplished, 
but illegitimate son of Charles II. made a dash at 
the throne, relying on his popularity with the people, 
which was great and secured him many Protestant 
followers. His insurrection was put down, and a ter- 
rible slaughter made among those who had assisted 
or even passively assented to his rebellion. Judge 
Jeffreys, of whom we have read so much, and whom 
Macaulay describes with such vividness, went up and 
down the country condemning to execution with the 
delight of a fiend, and roaring curses at his victims. 
Soon their bleeding heads and quarters were orna- 
menting almost every village in the western counties 
near where Monmouth had landed, a shocking sight 
to modern eyes, but one on which the men and even 
women of that age could look with comparative in- 
difference. 

One would suppose that such cruel wholesale ven- 
geance would have shaken Penn's regard for the 
17 257 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

king; but it did not. "The king," he said, "was 
much to be pitied, who was hurried into all this effu- 
sion of blood by Jeffrey's impetuous and cruel tem- 
per." He writes of these events to his steward at 
Pennsbury in the matter-of-fact way men wrote of 
such things in those days ; for no one then spoke of 
cruelty with the excitement and horror which are 
now used. 

" About three hundred hanged in divers towns in the West, about 
one thousand to be transported. I begged twenty of the king. Col. 
Holmes, young Hays, the two Hewlings, Lark, and Hix, ministers, 
are executed. , . . There is daily inquisition for those engaged in 
the late plots, some die denying, as Alderman Cornish, others con- 
fessing but justifying. ... A woman, one Gaunt of Wappen, of 
Doct. Moore's acquaintance, was burned the same day at Tyburn 
for the high treason of hiding one of Monmouth's army, and the man 
saved came in against her. She died composedly and fearless, in- 
terpreting the cause of her death God's cause. Many more to be 
hanged, great and small. It is a day to be wise." 

By saying that it was a day to be wise, Penn prob- 
ably meant that in such a turmoil of affairs Quakers 
had best stand aside, be quiet and prudent, and get 
what relief they could. It is to be observed that of 
those to be transported, he begged twenty of the 
king, and these, it is supposed, he sent to Pennsylva- 
nia. This saved them from the worse fate of a penal 
colony. But whether he was able at this time to 
save anybody's life is not known. 

He has been charged, however, by Macaulay in 
his History of England, with being concerned at this 
time in a most nefarious transaction. The victims 
of the rebellion were so numerous that many low 
pardon-brokers and courtiers were driving a very 
258 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

thriving trade in selling ransoms. Some little girls, 
it seems, had by the direction of their school-mis- 
tress, marched in a procession when Monmouth 
landed. The maids of honor at court demanded 
these girls as their share of the spoil, and when this 
was granted informed the parents of the children 
that seven thousand pounds would save them. Wil- 
liam Penn, says Macaulay, was the go-between se- 
lected to extort this money. 

If this charge is true, Penn was a contemptible 
villain, the virtues usually ascribed to him mere 
hypocrisy, and we should forget as soon as possible 
that he ever lived, and change the name of Pennsyl- 
vania. When, however, we examine the evidence 
on which Macaulay relied, we find that it is a letter 
written by Lord Sunderland to a Mr. Penne, asking 
him to undertake the task in company with a Mr. 
Walden. There is no evidence that the Mr. Penne 
accepted the offer, or that he was the same person 
as William Penn, and it is well known that there ^was 
at that time a notorious pardon-broker named George 
Penne. Moreover, Oldmixon, a contemporary au- 
thority, tells us that Brent, the popish lawyer, was 
the agent who finally acted for the maids of honor, 
Macaulay, as sometimes happened, was hasty in his 
investigations as well as in his conclusions. 

He also sneers at Penn for attending, at this time, 
the executions of Cornish and Elizabeth Gaunt. 

" William Penn, for whom exhibitions, which humane men gen- 
erally avoid, seem to have had a strong attraction, hastened from 
Cheapside where he had seen Cornish hanged to Tyburn in order to 
see Elizabeth Gaunt burnt." 

259 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Macaulay is very careless in asserting that humane 
men generally avoid such exhibitions. They do 
now ; but they did not then. The admirers and 
friends of a victim or martyr usually made a point 
of going to see him die. Evelyn, who was a devoted 
adherent of Charles I., went to his execution, and 
calmly describes it in his diary, 

Elizabeth Gaunt had concealed one of the Mon- 
mouth rebels in her house. He informed on her 
and was allowed to go free, while she perished. 
Bishop Burnet, in his " History of his Own Times," 
tells us how Penn described to him both her death 
and Cornish's, and Penn's description shows the 
spirit in which he viewed these shocking events. 

" She rejoiced that God had honoured her to be the first that 
suffered by fire in this reign ; and that her suffering was a martyrdom 
for that religion which was all love. Pen, the quaker told me, he 
saw her die. She laid the straw about her for burning her speedily ; 
and behaved herself in such a manner, that all the spectators melted 
in tears. . . . 

" Cornish, at his death, asserted his innocence with great vehe- 
mence ; and with some acrimony complained of the methods taken 
to destroy him. And so they gave it out, that he died in a fit of fury. 
But Pen who saw the execution, said to me, there appeared nothing 
but a just indignation that innocence might very naturally give. Pen 
might be well relied on in such matters, he being so entirely in the 
king's interests." (History of his Own Times," pp. 649, 651.) 

It must be confessed, however, that Penn, in be- 
coming a courtier and associating with the syco- 
phants and corruptionists which at that time crowded 
the court, ran a great risk of being confused with 
them, and accused of their crimes. He was himself 
an obtainer of pardons, and obtained many of tRem ; 
260 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

but as we are assured from several sources that he 
took no pay, he cannot be called one of the pardon- 
brokers, of whom he must often have seen many at 
court. It was, however, in accordance with his prin- 
ciples to disregard all such risks as this. He found 
he had an influence with the king, and he was deter- 
mined to use it to assist the Quakers and all others 
who were suffering from the tyranny of the times. 

But in one respect he was very blind, perhaps 
deliberately blind, to the condition of things. In 
a letter to his steward at Pennsbury, he shows that 
he was well aware of what the Roman Catholics 
were doing in other countries. It seems almost in- 
credible that he did not realize what he would be 
supporting if he supported a king hke James. 

" In France, not a meeting of Protestants left, they force all, by not 
suffering them to sleep, to conform ; they use drums or fling water on 
the drowsy till they submit or run mad. . . . Such as fly and are 
caught are executed or sent to the galleys to row. . . . Believe me 
it is an extraordinary day, such as has not been since generations ago. 
Read this to weighty friends and magistrates in private." 

From the last injunction it would seem that he did 
not want this letter to be made public and come 
back to England to be read at court. He was in a 
delicate position with his boundary case still pend- 
ing before the Privy Council, the burden of obtain- 
ing relief for the people of his faith, and compelled 
to obtain the relief from such a source as James II. 

Some one wrote verses extolling the king and 

popery and signed them with Penn's initials. It was 

a petty trick, but in the prevailing excitement it 

helped to spread the suspicion that he was a Jesuit. 

261 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

He had to write a long statement to deny the author- 
ship and offset the effect of the verses. About the 
same time he discovered that Dr. Tillotson, after- 
wards Archbishop of Canterbury, had been report- 
ing him as in correspondence with the Jesuits at 
Rome ; and he had to write several letters to set 
Tillotson right. 

But if some were inclined to attack his reputation, 
because of his intimacy with the king, there were 
others who for the same reason sought his assist- 
ance. He rapidly became a very active and influen- 
tial courtier, and soon had all the business in this 
line that he could handle. 

In modern times the British government is carried 
on by the cabinet officers or ministry, and divided 
into great and permanently organized departments. 
Those who have favors to ask or claims to press 
deal with the officials of these departments or with 
parliamentary committees. But in Penn's time there 
was none of this system. Government by ministry 
had not been developed to its present form ; nor 
was Parliament so important as it is now. The 
king was the source of all favors and the authority 
for the allowance of claims. His assent must first 
be obtained before the machinery of the departments 
could be set in motion. 

So the courtiers — the men who by their manners, 
accomplishments, political sagacity, or influence with 
sects or parties were most pleasing to the king — be- 
came the middlemen, or attorneys and agents, to help 
on the affairs of the crowd of suitors. It was busi- 
ness, but it was managed in a strolling way, as pleas- 
262 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

antly as possible, so as to seem not like business, but 
as part of the gracious favor or amusement of his 
Majesty. Judging from Pepys's '* Diary" and other 
books, the courtiers managed a great many of their 
affairs and collected information and gossip walking 
to and fro with one another or with their clients in 
the gardens or in the corridors of White Hall. They 
saw the king as best they could : sometimes when he 
was dressing in the morning, which was a favorite 
time with Charles II. for receiving visitors. 

We have already seen how Penn secured from the 
king a pardon for Vickris. Soon afterwards he ob- 
tained a pardon for his college-mate, John Locke, 
who was an exile in Holland. But the proud philos- 
opher declined it. He had done nothing, he said, 
which required a pardon. 

Penn's friendship and influence with the king being 
now well established, the demands on him became 
incessant, and Gerard Croese tells us of his busy life. 

" Penn, being so highly favored, acquired thereby a number of 
friends. Those also who formerly knew him, when they had any 
favor to ask at court, came to, courted, and entreated Penn to pro- 
mote their several requests. Penn refused none of his friends any 
reasonable office he could do for them, but was ready to serve them 
all, but more especially the Quakers, and these wherever their re- 
ligion was concerned. It is usually thought, when you do me one 
favor readily, you thereby encourage me to expect a second. Thus 
they ran to Penn without intermission, as their only pillar and sup- 
port, who always caressed and received them cheerfully, and effected 
their business by his influence and eloquence. Hence his house and 
gates were daily thronged by a numerous train of clients and sup- 
pliants, desiring him to present their addresses to his Majesty. There 
were sometimes two hundred and more. When the carrying on of 
these affairs required money for writings, such as drawing things out 
into form and copyings, and for fees and other charges which are 
263 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

usually made on such occasions, Penn so discreetly managed matters, 
that out of his own, which he had in abundance, he liberally dis- 
charged many emergent expenses." (" General History of the 
Quakers," p. io6.) 

We are not informed of the various kinds of cases 
Penn managed for his cHents. A great deal of his 
business was obtaining pardons, for, in that age of 
turmoil, rebellions, and civil war, there were hun- 
dreds of people constantly in exile or in danger 
of death. There were many pardon-brokers about 
the court, and some of them were very nefarious 
in their operations, demanding enormous sums or 
all a man's estate for saving his life. Penn, how- 
ever, we are assured, took no fees. 

There was a certain Charlewood Lawton, who had 
taken part in Monmouth's rebellion and had been 
obliged to hide himself in the moorlands of Staf- 
fordshire ; but being relieved from apprehension 
when the general pardon was published, Penn sought 
him out and made friends with him in that cordial 
manner which he seems to have bestowed on so 
many people to whom he took a fancy. Lawton, in 
return, became a great admirer of Penn, and in a 
memoir he left speaks with enthusiasm of his " in- 
exhaustible spring of benevolence towards all his 
fellow-creatures, without any narrow or stingy regard 
to either civil or religious parties." After telling 
how Penn at his request obtained a free pardon for 
Aaron Smith, who was about to buy one by the sur- 
render of his whole estate, Lawton gives a de- 
scription which throws some light on Penn's manner 
and the times. 

264 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

"After dinner as we were drinking a glass of wine, Mr. Penn, 
turning to him, told Mr. Popple that he had brought him such a man 
as he had never met with before. ' I have just now asked him how 
I might do something for himself, and he hath desired me to get 
pardon for another man.' And so Mr. Penn repeated at length what 
had passed between us upon the terrace walk, and then turning to 
me, he said, ' though I will, at thy request, get, if I can, Aaron 
Smith's pardon, yet I desire thou wilt think of something wherein I 
can do a kindness for thyself.' 

" Upon that I said I could tell him how he might prolong my 
life. Mr. Penn replied, ' I am no physician, but prithee tell me 
what thou meanest ?' And so I told him Jack Trenchard (for so 
we State Whigs used to call him) who was afterwards Secretary 
of State, was abroad, and if he could get him leave to come home 
with safety and honor, the drinking now and then a bottle with 
Jack Trenchard would make me so cheerful, that it would prolong 
my life. 

" To this Mr. Penn smilingly answered, ' To show thee I will not 
deny thee anything thou canst reasonably ask, I promise thee I will 
get him too a pardon, if I can ;' and after this we chatted half an 
hour, and so parted. 

" In three weeks or a month he got Aaron Smith's pardon ; and 
prevailing with my Lord Jefiferies (then Lord Chancellor) to join 
with him, they in a short time obtained Mr. Trenchard's." (Me- 
moirs, Penna. Hist. Soc, vol. iii. part ii. p. 215.) 

This throng of dients compelled Penn to Hve at 
Kensington in London. He rented Holland House, 
a handsome residence belonging to the Earl of 
Warwick ; and he led a very expensive life, keeping 
a coach and four and other extravagances. He may- 
have seemed to have been paying the expenses of 
his Quaker clients out of his own abundance, as 
Croese calls it ; but that abundance was being 
rapidly drained, for in addition to his other ex- 
penses he was losing money by Pennsylvania. He 
was paying all the expenses of government there, 
and the officials had a bad habit of drawing on him 
265 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

for whatever they wanted, as if he were an inex- 
haustible mine. 

"I have had two letters more," he writes to his steward, "with 
three bills of exchange. I am sorry the public is so unmindful of 
me as not to prevent bills upon me that am come on their errand, 
and had rather have lost a thousand pounds, than have stirred from 
Pennsylvania. . . . James, send no more bills, for I have enough to 
do to keep all even here, and think of returning with my family ; 
that can't be without vast charge." 

His heart was set on enjoying again the simple, 
honest pleasures of his wilderness colony, and never 
leaving them. But he was held fast in England not 
only by the dispute with Lord Baltimore, but by the 
critical condition of politics and the demands of the 
Quakers. He was in too deep with the king to get 
out Neither his conscience nor his ambition could 
quite permit him to drop the important public po- 
sition in which he had suddenly found himself since 
the accession of James. 

In the spring of 1686, shortly before the king set 
at liberty the thirteen hundred Quakers with the 
other dissenters, Penn wrote an important pamphlet 
called "A Persuasive to Moderation." It was his 
old subject, liberty of conscience, but he argues it out 
afresh with new suggestions. It is in some respects 
one of his best arguments on this subject, which he 
handled so often, for in this instance he takes par- 
ticular pains to give instances where toleration had 
proved itself a poUtical and commercial success. He 
begins, of course, with ancient times and the flour- 
ishing state of the Roman empire, which tolerated 
over thirty thousand different religious rites among 
266 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

her people. But he soon comes down to his own 
time, and gives numerous instances of the success 
of toleration in the small states of Europe and in 
most of the British colonies in America. He con- 
sidered himself as proving conclusively by these 
that toleration never endangered monarchy. 

His most important instance, of course, is Hol- 
land, " that bog of the world," as he calls it, 
"neither sea nor dry land, now the rival of the 
tallest monarchies ; not by conquests, marriages, or 
accession of royal blood, the usual ways of empire, 
but by her own superlative clemency and industry." 
Then he goes on to show that toleration gave se- 
curity to property, which could never be secure 
when estates were at any moment liable to be 
swept away by the sheriff to pay the fines for re- 
ligious dissent. 

Then he speaks of the Declaration of Indulgence 
in the last reign, which, by relieving the dissenters 
from persecution, greatly encouraged trade. So 
long as the indulgence lasted, " all men," he says, 
" labored cheerfully and traded boldly when they 
had the royal word to keep what they got." He 
does not seem, however, to realize sufficiently that 
it was a dangerous violation of the constitution to 
allow the king to suspend laws even to accomplish 
such a good purpose. He had not then written his 
maxim, "To do evil that good may come of it, is for 
bunglers in politics as well as morals." 

He calls the Declaration of Indulgence the "sov- 
ereign remedy of our English constitution." Such 
an indulgence, he thinks, will be the panacea for all 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

political ills. If full religious liberty were allowed 
the dissenters, they would all, he says, be united in 
favor of the government, and such rebellions as 
Monmouth's and such designs as the Rye House 
plot would cease. This last was a sound suggestion ; 
but it was not sound to favor granting that liberty 
by allowing the king to suspend the laws, and it is 
surprising to find Penn in effect arguing for another 
declaration of indulgence. 

Penn afterwards spoke of this pamphlet as having 
not a little circulation and influence, and he was not 
a man who was conceited about his own writings or 
over-estimated them. Whether it influenced the 
king or not, the king was on this occasion wiser than 
Penn, for he merely pardoned the dissenters who 
were in prison, which he had a right to do, without 
attempting as yet to violate constitutional right by 
suspending the laws. 

Penn and the Quakers were, of course, well 
pleased with this result; but Penn seems to have 
known that things were not quite so rosy as they 
seemed. In writing to his steward, after saying how 
he longs to be back again in Pennsylvania, but 
" great undertakings" crowd him, he says, — 

" The Lord keep us here in this dark day. Be wise, close, respect- 
ful to superiors. The king has discharged all Friends by a general 
pardon, and is courteous to us, though as to the Church of England 
things seem pinching. Several Roman Catholics get much into 
places in the army, navy, and court." 

So Penn was well aware that the king was " pinch- 
ing" the Church of England. The letter is some- 
what guarded ; but Penn evidently saw that the king 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

had pardoned the dissenters for the sake of avoiding 
their hostility for a time, while he worked Roman 
CathoHcs into power and turned both government 
and church over to Rome. This, Penn says, made 
a " dark day ;" and he must have foreseen that when 
the people once fully realized what the king was 
doing, there would be a terrible outbreak of some 
kind. He was powerless to turn the king from this 
course ; and we do not know that he even tried at 
this time. His influence extended only to obtaining 
favors for individuals. 

Why, then, did he continue to stand in with the 
king? It was his only way of obtaining relief for 
the Quakers, and this was certainly a great tempta- 
tion when thirteen hundred of them had just been 
released. As for a general liberty of conscience 
established by law, he apparently had no hope of it 
at that time, except in Pennsylvania, In England 
liberty must be picked up as you could get it. He 
had to protect from interference both Pennsylvania 
and the Jerseys, and he had his litigation with Lord 
Baltimore. These important interests might all be 
injured by losing favor at court. 

It is curious to note that for a time after the king 
had pardoned everybody who was in jail for their 
religion, the magistrates and judges continued to 
enforce the laws against dissenters ; the informers 
continued to pry about, and constables made arrests. 
A person who had just been let out by the pardon 
might, by a zealous magistrate, be locked up again 
for a fresh offence. Penn himself, though he was so 
intimate with the king and daily obtaining favors for 
269 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

his clients, was not safe from the magistrates and 
informers, who would send constables to " pull him 
down" while he was preaching. "I have been 
thrice," he writes to his steward, " taken at meetings, 
but got off, blessed be God." 

It was a strange condition of affairs, and Penn 
was leading a strange life ; so influential with the 
king that he had become a courtier with hundreds 
of clients, and at the same time going out to preach 
to the Quakers, the supposed enemies of the govern- 
ment, and pulled down for it by constables and 
soldiers. The king, however, after a time stopped 
the magistrates and constables, so that the laws 
against dissenters stood on the books unexecuted. 

In the summer of this year, 1686, Penn made a 
third journey to Holland and Germany. It was partly 
a political and partly a religious journey, but of the 
religious part we know little or nothing, because 
he has left us no account of it. But we may infer 
that he spoke much of Pennsylvania and urged the 
Mennonites, Schwenkfelders, and other Quaker-like 
German sects to migrate to his province, as many of 
them did. The Quaker historian, Sewell, was then 
engaged in translating into Dutch Penn's description 
of Pennsylvania, and also "No Cross, No Crown," 
and Penn met him in Holland. Of the political 
part of the journey, however, something is known, 
and it is important, because it shows how Penn was 
becoming more and more involved in the schemes 
of the king. 

Whether the king actually commissioned him to 
visit, in Holland, William, the Prince of Orange, is 
270 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

not certain, but, at any rate, he did so and advocated 
the king's pohcy. The Prince of Orange had mar- 
ried James's daughter Mary, who would succeed to 
the throne if James had no son, and, as things hap- 
pened, she and the prince took the throne from 
James by violence two years afterwards. The ob- 
ject of Penn's visit was to persuade the prince, whose 
wife was heir presumptive to the crown, to agree 
that there should be not only freedom of religious 
worship in England, but that the test laws, which 
kept both Roman Catholics and dissenters out of 
Parliament and office, should be abolished. William 
was an ardent and liberal Protestant, and as sincere 
a believer in religious liberty as Penn. He readily 
agreed that there should be freedom of worship not 
only to dissenters, but to papists ; but he very natu- 
rally declined to have a hand in removing the test 
laws which blocked a Roman Catholic king from 
turning over to Rome the British government and 
church. 

Bishop Burnet, who was then at WilHam's court, 
has described Penn's efforts and William's answer 
in a passage which is well worth quoting. 



" But for the tests he would enter into no treaty about them. He 
said it was a plain betraying the security of the Protestant re- 
ligion to give them up. Nothing was left unsaid that might move 
him to agree to this in the way of interest. The king would enter 
into an entire confidence with him, and would put his best friends in 
the chief trusts. Pen undertook for this so positively, that he seemed 
to believe it himself, or he was a great proficient in the art of dis- 
simulation. Many suspected that he was a concealed Papist. It is 
certain he was much with Father Peter, and was particularly trusted 
by the Earl of Sunderland. So tho' he did not pretend any com- 
271 



\ 

THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

mission for what he promised, yet we looked on him as a man em- 
ployed. To all this the Prince answered, that no man was more 
for toleration in principle than he was : He thought the conscience 
was only subject to God : And as far as a general toleration, even 
of Papists, would content the king, he would concur in it heartily : 
But he looked on the Tests as such a real security, and indeed the 
only one, when the king was of another religion, that he would 
join in no counsels with those that intended to repeal those laws 
that enacted them. Pen said the king would have all or noth- 
ing : But that if this was once done the king would secure the tolera- 
tion by a solemn and unalterable law. To this the late repeal of the 
edict of Nantes that was declared perpetual and irrevocable furnished 
an answer that admitted of no reply." ("Burnet's History of his 
Own Times," vol. i. 693, 694.) 

It is strange that Penn should have been willing 
to press such a request ; for he knew that James 11. 
was drawing Roman Catholics into office as fast as 
he could in spite of the tests. Penn might, perhaps, 
have defended himself by saying that he believed in 
absolute religious liberty without restrictions or tests 
of any kind. To which William of Orange would 
very justly have replied that such complete liberty 
might be possible some day ; but at the present time 
the tests must be retained in order to keep the 
Roman Catholics out of power ; for all English his- 
tory had shown that, if once in full control, they 
would organize the worst sort of religious despotism. 

William, as Burnet tells us, had about that time 
seen an intercepted letter of the Jesuits in which 
they boasted that James had declared that he would 
establish the Roman religion in England, or die a 
martyr in the attempt* 



* Burnet's History of his Own Times, vol. i. p. 711. 
272 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

William also, of course, wanted the tests retained 
to keep out of power the dissenters who would de- 
stroy the Church of England. His theory which he 
afterwards put into practice, and which proved to be 
the sound one, was to protect the English Church, 
keep it in power, and keep dissenters, Roman and 
otherwise, out of power ; at the same time allowing 
all of them complete freedom, so far as concerned 
their worship. The British government has been 
conducted on this principle with gradual relaxation 
of it down into our own time. 

Penn on this occasion seems to have been utterly 
lacking in common shrewdness. While professing 
himself a lover of liberty and a Protestant, he was 
appearing at the court of the future King of Eng- 
land, as the dupe and tool of James II., a Roman 
Catholic and well known to be an enemy of liberty. 
He made himself very unpopular with important 
people who were really his friends, and laid up a 
store of trouble for himself The followers of the 
Prince of Orange learned to despise him, and that 
talking and very violent follower Bishop Burnet 
acquired for him a relentless antipathy which he 
afterwards took no pains to conceal. 

As for the prince himself, he was supremely strong 
in the quality in which Penn was weak. He saw 
through and through human nature at a glance. He 
wasted no antipathy on Penn, because he saw that 
he was merely a sincere man who was making a 
great mistake. 

Penn, Burnet afterwards tells us, persuaded a 
Scottish lawyer. Steward, to leave his Puritan and 

i8 273 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Presbyterian party and become an ardent follower 
of King James. This Steward also came over to 
Holland to persuade William to agree that the tests 
should be abolished, and declared that James would 
never abolish the penal laws against dissenters' wor- 
ship, unless the tests were abolished also ; so that no 
sort of religious liberty could be had in England 
unless the test laws were sacrificed. 

There is another incident connected with Penn's 
visit to the prince's court which should be mentioned, 
because it shows the strength of his relations with 
James XL He met there some prominent Presby- 
terian refugees from Scotland, and among them Sir 
Robert Stuart, of Coltness. On his return to Eng- 
land he recommended to James that these men 
should be allowed to return from exile because they 
were merely zealous for their religion, and had not 
been engaged in treasonable acts against the govern- 
ment. James complied, but Sir Robert Stuart, on 
his return, found himself penniless, because his es- 
tate had been given to the Earl of Arran. He told 
Penn of it ; and in the Earl of Buchan's " Essays 
on Fletcher and Thompson," we have a description 
of the very sharp and quick way by which Penn 
compelled the restoration of the estate. 

" Thou hast taken possession of Coltness's estate," said Penn, 
" Thou knowest that it is not thine." 

" That estate," said Arran, " I paid a great price for. I received 
no other reward for my expensive and troublesome embassy in 
France." 

" All very well, friend James, but of this assure thyself, that if 

thou dost not give me this moment an order on thy chamberlain for 

two hundred pounds to Coltness to carry him down to his native 

274 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

country, and a hundred a year to subsist on till matters are adjusted, 
I will make it as many thousands out of thy way with the king" 
(p. 29). 

Arran, we are told, instantly complied, and after 
the revolution the estate was fully restored. This 
strength of Penn's influence with the king leads us 
to infer that the king must have considered Penn's 
services of great value, and that Penn must have 
been doing a good deal for him. James II. was 
hardly the man to allow Penn so many favors for 
nothing. 

It will be remembered, in the passage just quoted 
from Bishop Burnet, that he speaks of Penn as 
the friend of Lord Sunderland, or, as he puts it, 
"particularly trusted by the Earl of Sunderland." 
Penn had first met Sunderland in Paris, or, as some 
say, at Oxford, when the students rebelled against 
the surplices. They were always intimate. He 
assisted Penn in obtaining his charter for Pennsyl- 
vania. Penn wrote letters to him from the province. 
He addressed him in one letter as " Noble and old 
Friend," * and he sought his aid against Lord Bal- 
timore. Penn's biographers usually mention this 
intimacy in a casual way, and I am inclined to 
think that the ordinary reader would infer that Sun- 
derland was some pleasant, philanthropic nobleman, 
with a handsome country seat and plenty of game. 

Unless, however, his biographers have very much 
belied him, this Sunderland was the most unprinci- 



* Buck's Penn in America, p. 159; Memoirs, Penna. Hist. Soc, 
vol. iv. p. 183. 

275 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

pled and low-lived politician that has ever been a 
curse to Great Britain. He had neither morals, 
honesty, nor honor. He was in the secret pay of 
France, and received from that source ;^2500 a 
year for furnishing information. He posed as the 
zealous friend of James IL ; but he allowed his wife 
to have an amorous intrigue with Henry Sydney, 
who was an adherent of the Prince of Orange, and 
through his wife and her paramour he sent informa- 
tion to that prince at the very time he professed to 
be upholding James. When he thought James was 
about to succeed in turning the government over to 
Rome, he became a Roman Catholic, having previ- 
ously compelled his son to take the same course. 
When William HI. arrived to drive James from the 
throne, Sunderland hastily absconded, having first 
robbed the jewel office and borrowed large sums 
of money. He afterwards returned to England, 
worked himself into the good graces of William, 
and became a Protestant again. 

I do not give this description for the purpose of 
suggesting that it was wrong for Penn to be intimate 
with him, or that Penn was in any way like him. 
But if we would understand Penn's position and all 
that happened to him in the next few years, we must 
know his surroundings and the sort of men on whom 
he relied for favors and assistance. 

Henry Sydney, who shared Sunderland's wife, was 
the brother of Algernon Sydney, and, strangely 
enough, his sister was Sunderland's mother. Henry 
Sydney soon took a leading part in bringing over 
William III. Penn was intimate with him, and, as 
276 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

we shall see, was befriended by him ; but he was 
not what we should call a saint. 

There were very few saints at court. If Penn 
had declined to be intimate with any but good men, 
his acquaintance would have been small. These 
noblemen were all buying and selling one another. 
They would accuse one of their number of treason, 
give information against him, and immediately apply 
to have his estate given them when he should be 
convicted. 

In the autumn of this year, 1686, after his return 
from Holland, we find Penn preaching in various 
parts of England, and delighted at the numbers 
which attended, — often a thousand at a meeting. 
At the same time he was writing most pathetic 
letters to the steward of his wilderness country-seat 
in Pennsylvania. They were still drawing on him 
for all sorts of things, the expenses of the govern- 
ment, and extravagant provisions and supplies for 
his servants and people at Pennsbury. " Now I de- 
sire thee," he writes, " to draw no more upon me for 
one penny." He was now, he says, ;if5000 and 
more behindhand. They have a good farm and 
stock at Pennsbury, why should they be importing 
meat and other things from Ireland and compelling 
him to pay for them ? so again he says in the same 
letter, " I beseech thee not to draw any more." 

He could easily have stopped this nonsense by a 
little firmness with his people, instead of beseeching 
and begging them ; but he was a bad manager of 
such things. This man Harrison, who was his 
steward at Pennsbury, he liked and almost idolized, 
277 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

as he did every one whom he employed. He wrote 
him most confidential, affectionate letters, which are 
very interesting now to read, because they show how 
he delighted in all his plans for the province. 

He was sending out grape-vines by the thousand ; 
for every one at that time expected that grapes and 
wine would be one of the great industries in America. 
While in the province, Penn had written to Lord 
Halifax about the " incredible number" of wild 
grapes, and he describes having drunk "a good 
claret" that had been made from them. It must have 
been his extreme delight in all these natural things of 
his province that made that claret seem good. Many 
years afterwards travellers related how everywhere 
in the environs of Philadelphia they saw grape-vines 
and the remains of attempted vineyards. Silk-worm 
raising was also another delusion which many people 
had about America ; but Penn escaped that. 

He was giving directions about gardening, grass, 
corn, and sheep, and the fertilizers soot and ashes 
that might be used. And how he longed to be back 
there again ; and how quickly he would fly there if 
that detestable Baltimore litigation would only end ! 
" There is nothing my soul breathes more for in this 
world, next to my dear family's life, than that I may 
see poor Pennsylvania again." But the people there 
must treat him better, or he would not come to 
them. They really must. 

" Besides that the country think not upon my supply, and I resolve 

never to act the governor and keep another family and capacity upon 

my private estate. If my table, cellar and stable may be provided 

for, with a barge and yacht or sloop for the service of governor or 

27S 



BECOMES A COURTIER 

government I may try to get hence, for in the sight of God, I can say 
I am five thousand pounds behindhand more than I ever received or 
saw for land in that province, and to be so baffled by the merchants 
is discouraging and not to be put up." 

The yacht seems at first sight an extravagance ; 
but it was really needed for his journeys up and 
down his hundred miles of river-front, which was 
the principal highway. In another letter he scolds 
again. He really will not come to them unless they 
behave better and stop wrangling and misgoverning 
among themselves. He means what he says. " This 
is no anger, though I am grieved, but a cool and 
resolved thought." And then he goes on "entreat- 
ing" them to stop drawing on him, instead of order- 
ing them to stop ; and he cannot understand why he 
should have to pay for sending beef to them from 
England. 

When Penn's affections were deeply touched, — 
when he took a fancy to a province, or to a man, or 
to a king, — there seems to have been no limit to his 
folly. 



279 



XVIII 

SUPPORTS THE DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

In the spring of 1687 James II. made what on its 
face was a grand proclamation of liberty. He issued 
a declaration of indulgence suspending not only the 
laws against the worship of Romanists and other dis- 
senters, but also the test acts which kept them out 
of ParHament and civil and military offices. He threw 
down the bars and laid open the government in 
a way which he could certainly say was far in ad- 
vance of his time ; for such liberality was not after- 
wards attained in a hundred years. 

Lawton, whose memoir has been already quoted, 
says that Penn had opposed an indulgence which 
suspended the laws in such an unconstitutional and 
unpopular way. We know not what passed between 
Penn and the king on the subject, and Lawton does 
not give us the source of his knowledge. But 
Penn's writings do not show an op*position to the 
Declaration of Indulgence ; nor does his conduct. 
He was one of those who made efforts to procure 
from the various religious bodies addresses and me- 
morials thanking the king for his declaration, and 
he himself presented the address from the Quakers 
describing the indulgence as well accepted through- 
out the country. We have the king's answer to this 
280 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

latter address, and it is worth reading and remem- 
bering. 

" Gentlemen, I thank you heartily for your address. Some of you 
know (I am sure you do Mr. Penn), that it was always my principle, 
that consciences ought not to be forced, and that all men ought to 
have the liberty of their consciences. And what I have promised in 
my declaration I will continue to perform so long as I live. And I 
hope before I die, to settle it, so that after ages shall have no reason 
to alter it." 

This was the king's " word for Hberty," in which 
Penn afterwards said he had imphcit faith. He be- 
heved that the king would in the end estabhsh com- 
plete liberty, and this was one of the reasons why 
he was willing to stand by him. The whole court 
had, indeed, put on the most extraordinary airs of 
liberality. The popish priests outdid Penn and de- 
scribed with enthusiasm the immense benefits that 
would result from religious liberty. But the king 
had peculiar methods for establishing this very de- 
sirable thing, and how Penn could continue to sup- 
port him is a mystery which each reader must ex- 
plain for himself as we go on. 

Before he resorted to the Declaration of Indulgence 
James had been drawing Roman Catholics into office 
and into the livings of the Established Church. By 
dismissing some judges and packing the court with 
his favorites he had obtained a decision that although 
he might not have the right to dispense with the 
tests which prohibited Romanists as a body from 
holding office, he might on special grounds dispense 
with these tests in individual instances. In this way 
he thought that the offices of government might be 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

given to people of his own religion one by one. A 
start once made and the fashion set, many of the 
aristocracy would change their religion, as they had 
done in former reigns, and those who would not 
change could be forced. He supposed that English 
Churchmen were still very much attached to the 
doctrine of passive obedience and ready to accept 
without question the religion of the civil power if 
backed by force. 

In this, however, he was mistaken. That the game 
had been successfully played before was true. In 
the early days of the Reformation when everything 
was in a state of flux, when men's minds were be- 
wildered and their convictions unsteady, any one who 
captured the government machinery could force the 
religion of England into almost any channel he 
chose. But that day was passed, as James soon dis- 
covered, and Penn having failed to obtain for him 
the consent of WilHam of Orange to a repeal of the 
tests which kept Roman Catholics out of power he 
resolved to repeal those tests on his own responsi- 
bility by the Declaration of Indulgence. To make 
it more acceptable he said that he would try to 
induce Parliament to abolish by law the tests which 
he was then abolishing by despotism. 

Penn retained his confidence in James in the face 
of all facts and warnings. He knew the situation. 
He knew that the great object of the Roman church 
in that age was to seize political power, and that it 
was often successful ; and he knew also the conse- 
quences of such success. He knew that Louis XIV. 
of France was on friendly terms with James, and 
282 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

when opportunity offered would assist in capturing 
the English government for Rome, He had letters 
from friends on the continent describing the perse- 
cutions that still continued there : how the Protes- 
tants were hunted down by soldiers, who kept them 
awake by throwing water on them until they turned 
Catholic or went mad. He remembered that his 
uncle, George Penn, had been caught by the Inqui- 
sition in Spain, his property confiscated by the 
church, himself imprisoned for three years, during 
which time he was whipped once a month, and 
finally tortured on the rack and sent back to Eng- 
land a wrecked and dying man. 

He must have felt the force of all this ; but he at- 
tempted to argue against it in a most extraordinary 
pamphlet called " Good Advice to Roman Catholic 
and Protestant Dissenters." This pamphlet was issued 
soon after the Declaration of Indulgence appeared, 
and was avowedly in support of the king's policy. 
It is significant that Penn would not sign his name 
to it, but published it anonymously. 

The substance of it is that the test laws should be 
abolished in the interests of religious liberty, because 
there was now no danger from the Roman Catholics. 
They could not capture the government, even if the 
tests were removed, because, first of all, the masses of 
the English people were opposed to such an attempt. 
The Catholics were a sensible people, knew their 
own interest, and would not want to do what the 
majority in England disapproved of " Toleration," 
he says, " and no more, is that which all Romanists 
ought to be satisfied with." And he professed to 
283 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

think that because they ought to be satisfied that 
therefore they would be satisfied. They would not, 
he said, take too much. Some of them, undoubt- 
edly, wanted to take everything, but they were not 
sufficiently numerous. In fact, the whole body of the 
Catholics was only a small fraction of the popula- 
tion, — scarcely thirty thousand out of eight million, 
— and they were very much divided in opinion. 

As for the king's putting the Romanists in power, 
that was impossible, because he was an old man of 
fifty-three years, of a short-lived family, and he would 
not have time before his death to accomplish the 
designs of which he was suspected. Moreover, he 
had given his word against anything of that kind, 
and why should not a king's word be as good as any 
man's? Penn actually had the face to say that 
James would not establish popery and despotism 
because he had promised not to do so. 

As for Louis XIV. of France coming to assist 
James in such a design, Penn said there was nothing 
to fear in that because it was not likely that James 
would be so ill advised as to admit a foreign army 
into England, and, even if he did, England had 
enough ships and men to prevent it. 

This anonymous pamphlet is a rather ugly cir- 
cumstance in Penn's life, and his biographers have 
touched very lightly upon it or attempted to ob- 
scure that part of it which advocates the abolition 
of the tests and upholds the policy of James. They 
would prefer to have it seem to be a pamphlet in 
favor only of the aboHtion of the penal laws against 

worship. 

284 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

Some biographers not only ignore this pamphlet, 
but go so far as to argue that Penn was opposed to 
the policy of James. Dixon cites Clarendon as say- 
ing, under date of June 23, 1688, that Penn "labored 
to thwart the Jesuitical influence that predominated." 
But when we come to read this passage in Clarendon's 
diary, we find that Dixon has paraphrased it, and it 
is not quite so strong as he would have us believe, 

"Robert Barclay dined with me: he told me that he and Penn 
had reconciled Lord Sunderland and Lord Melfort ; which he hoped 
would be the ruin of Father Peters." 

Very likely Penn did oppose the Jesuitical influ- 
ence. He was, no doubt, as Dixon says, opposed to 
the Declaration of Indulgence being read in the 
churches ; and, as we shall see, he advised the king 
to release the bishops who were imprisoned for not 
ordering it to be read. He also, it appears, advised 
the king "to be cautious in his connection with 
France, lest the country should be discontented." It 
will be observed, however, that he only advises him 
to be cautious. He does not advise him to abstain 
altogether. There is no doubt, however, that he re- 
monstrated with the king against many of his meas- 
ures, and we shall see more instances of his opposing 
particular measures. But he wi-ote the anonymous 
pamphlet favoring James's supreme measure of abol- 
ishing the tests, and he ridiculed the fears of what 
might result from this abolition. He was in the ex- 
traordinary position of opposing important measures 
of James's when they were first broached, and then, 
when they were carried out, acquiescing in them or, 
285 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

as in the Declaration of Indulgence, assisting in 
carrying them out. He was opposed to particular 
measures ; in fact, if we can believe his biographers, 
he was opposed to all the measures of James, and 
yet remained with him and secretly supported his 
most important measure in an anonymous pamphlet. 
But it is absurd for any one to attempt to show 
that Penn was not an upholder of and believer in 
James ; for Penn himself has expressly admitted it. 
He believed that James, in spite of his tyrannous 
measures, would come out right in the end. After 
James was dethroned by William III., Penn, in a 
letter to the Quakers explaining his conduct, said, — 

" Nor can I yet see that providence of liberty and peace which we 
enjoyed under him was such a trick or snare as some have repre- 
sented it. . . . One thing I know — could I have apprehended that 
the good days we had during his reign, were a trick to introduce evil 
ones, all obligations would have ceased with me and no man more 
earnestly and cheerfully engaged after my manner against his govern- 
ment than myself. (Janney's Life of Penn, p. 354.) 

He was a very much deluded man ; that was the 
simple truth of the matter ; and, besides the anony- 
mous pamphlet, he seems to have used his personal 
influence among the dissenters to reconcile them to 
the Declaration of Indulgence and the policy of the 
king. For this purpose the Dutch ambassador tells 
us he travelled over the kingdom.* But he could 
win over only a few. The great mass of them would 
not accept the measure, even though it contained a 
benefit for them ; a benefit which was, indeed, great, 

* Van Citters to States-General, 4/17 Oct. 1687 ; Mackintosh 
Revolution, 1688, p. 290. 

286 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

for it relieved them from suffering which in this age we 
can hardly realize. They were shocked and alarmed 
at the principle involved, — that the king could without 
the consent of Parliament repeal laws ; and in the re- 
moval of the tests, which excluded both the Catholics 
and themselves from office, they saw nothing but the 
trick of a Catholic king to bring his own followers 
into power and crush out Protestantism by force. 

But Penn went on believing in James. He still 
had faith in the royal word for liberty, and thought 
all fears to the contrary groundless. This expression, 
the king's word for liberty, had then become a party 
cry ; and there were many who maintained that the 
king's word on this subject was a better safeguard 
than law. But how Penn could continue to retain 
his faith in James or his word in the transaction with 
Magdalen College is difficult to understand. 

James pursued his purpose steadily. He set out 
to capture the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 
and began to force Roman Catholic officers upon 
them. This was certainly attacking the stronghold, 
for whoever could possess himself of those two seats 
of learning could control the religion of England. 
Christ Church College and University were taken, 
and when the presidency of Magdalen became vacant 
he ordered the fellows to elect a Catholic. They 
refused, and when in spite of threats they continued 
to persist in their refusal, the king's officers broke 
down the college doors, turned out the president, the 
fellows, and the students, and the place was turned 
into a popish seminary. 

In this piece of tyranny I am glad to say that 
287 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Penn at first took the part of remonstrating with 
the king. But unfortunately when he found the 
king set in his purpose he changed his ground and 
advised the college to yield. Two or three colleges 
would, he said, content the papists. Let them have 
Christ Church, University, and Magdalen. If they 
dared to go farther they would lose his support. 
This was his method for establishing religious liberty 
in England. He still professed to believe that James 
would not take everything for the Catholics ; and he 
had no objection to the papists acquiring colleges by 
unlawful means. Colleges they must have, so he 
would let them take by violence one or two that 
belonged to the Protestants. His interview with the 
fellows of Magdalen is given by Dr. Hough, their 
president, and speaks for itself 

" He said ' Majesty did not love to be thwarted ; and after so long 
a dispute we could not expect to be restored to the king's favor with- 
out making some concessions. . . .' However said I, 'Mr. Penn, in 
this I will be plain with you. We have our statutes and oaths to 
justify us in all that we have done hitherto ; but setting this aside, we 
have a religion to defend, and I suppose yourself would think us 
knaves if we would tamely give it up. The papists have already 
gotten Christ Church and University: The present struggle is for 
Magdalen ; and in a short time they threaten they will have the rest.' 
He replied with vehemence. ' That they shall never have, assure 
yourselves; if once they proceed so far they will quickly find them- 
selves destitute of their present assistance. For my part, I have 
always declared my opinion that the preferments of the Church should 
not be put into any other hands but such as they are at present in ; 
but I hope you would not have the two Universities such invincible 
bulwarks for the Church of England, that none but they must be 
capable of giving their children a learned education. I suppose two 
or three colleges will content the Papists ; Christ Church is a noble 
structure, University is a pleasant place, and Magdalen College is a 
comely building. The walks are pleasant, and it is conveniently 
288 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

situated, just at the entrance of the town,' &c., &c. When I heard 
him talk at- this rate I concluded he was either off his guard, or had 
a mind to droll upon us. ' However,' I replied, ' when they had 
ours they would take the rest, as they and the present possessors 
could never agree ! In short, I see it is resolved that the Papists 
must have our college; and I think all we have to do is, to let the 
world see that they take it from us, and that we do not give it up " 
(Janney's Life of Penn, 316.) 

In all this conduct in support of James, Penn was 
in the most absurd manner contradicting his former 
principles. It will be remembered that at the time 
he was assisting in electing Algernon Sydney to 
Parliament, he wrote a pamphlet called " England's 
Great Interest in the Choice of this New Parliament," 
and he there declared that no law could be made or 
abrogated in England except by Parliament, that the 
English constitution was a government of laws, and 
that anything else was tyranny. Thus in 1679 he 
wrote directly against a declaration of indulgence, 
and in 1687 he was travelling about England trying 
to persuade the people to accept an indulgence. 

Just after the failure of Algernon Sydney to be 
elected to Parliament, Penn wrote another pamphlet 
called "One Project for the Good of England," in 
which he spoke fiercely of the design of the papists 
to capture the government ; declared that while no- 
body must be persecuted for their religion, yet Eng- 
land must be ruled by Protestants ; that the differ- 
ence between Catholics and Protestants was not only 
religious, but civil and political ; that Catholics had 
a different theory of government ; that they believed 
m despotism ; and that if they got into power they 
would wreck the liberties of England. 
»9 289 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

His whole design, stated again and again in this 
pamphlet, was to band together the Church of Eng- 
land and the dissenters against the Romanists, to 
show that it was absurd for the Church of England 
to persecute the dissenters, because the dissenters 
could save the country from Roman despotism. 
Eight years later he had shifted to the opposite po- 
sition and was trying to band together Rome and 
the dissenters against the Church of England. 

The most curious part of all is, that at the end of 
this pamphlet he offers a new test oath, composed 
by himself, drawn with great care, so that Quakers 
could take it, and followed by provisions for 
having it subscribed by all the freeholders of Eng- 
land, for the express purpose of keeping every Ro- 
man Catholic in the kingdom out of politics and 
out of power. In 1679, therefore, he was advo- 
cating tests and inventing some of his own. In 
1687 he was for abolishing the tests altogether. 

James went on step by step, and doubtless Penn 
thought that each step would be the last, and would 
satisfy the papists. But the papists became so 
abundantly satisfied that the Protestants could stand 
it no longer. James being determined to have laws 
made in support of his policy, attempted to pack 
Parliament, or, in the language then used, regulate 
it. He attempted to regulate the counties, the 
boroughs, and the returning officers, so that his own 
favorites would be elected, and as fast as one vio- 
lent scheme of this sort failed he tried another. 
When he found himself still unsuccessful in getting 
the members he wanted he called on the boroughs 
290 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

to surrender their charters and receive new ones. 
Few compHed, and those that refused had soldiers 
quartered on them to harass them into a surrender. 
Through all the departments of government there 
was a general turning out to make vacancies to be 
filled by the king's men. 

In this way a year passed by after the Declaration 
of Indulgence had been issued, and in April, 1688, 
James issued another of those dangerous instru- 
ments to the same effect as the first one. But he 
made it more detestable by announcing that he 
would put none into public office except those who 
would support him in maintaining the indulgence, 
and he completed his own ruin by ordering that this 
second indulgence should be read on two successive 
Sundays by the clergy in all the churches of the 
kingdom. He intended to humiliate and break 
down the Church of England and bend it to his 
will. He would compel its clergy to read the in- 
trument intended for their ruin, the instrument 
which would allow papists to replace them in their 
livings and parishes. As his Jesuit adviser, Father 
Petre, expressed it, the English clergy must eat dirt, 
the dirtiest of all dirt. 

But again James had miscalculated. The dis- 
senters had no love for the Established Church ; but 
as Englishmen and lovers of liberty they encouraged 
the Churchmen to resist this act of tyranny. The 
Declaration was read in but few churches, and in 
some of those the people all left as soon as they 
heard the first words of it. Seven bishops had pe- 
titioned the king against the order requiring the 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Declaration to be read, and James in his folly had 
the seven tried for a seditious libel, and even went 
so far as to imprison them in the Tower pending the 
trial because they refused to give bail. But it is 
hardly necessary to describe in detail this famous 
episode in English history, the outburst of indigna- 
tion it caused, and the way in which it united the 
whole nation against the king, who was now believed 
to be another Bloody Mary. 

At the same time another event occurred which 
sealed his fate. The queen gave birth to a son, and 
the people, seeing before them at least another gen- 
eration of papal despotism, were ready for revolu- 
tion. Russell and Henry Sydney formed the plan 
of bringing over William, the Protestant Prince of 
Orange, who had married James's daughter. He 
landed in England that same year and took the 
throne almost without opposition. James, deserted 
by his army, navy, and court, threw the Great Seal 
into the Thames and fled to France, where he lived 
the rest of his days, a pensioner on the bounty of 
Louis XIV. 

We are informed in the memoir of Charlewood 
Lawton, already quoted, that Penn opposed the 
regulation of the boroughs, and the depriving them 
of their charters, so that they would return the king's 
men to Parliament. Very likely he did. We should 
be sorry to think that with his principles he failed to 
oppose such an outrageous piece of tyranny. But 
he opposed it in a peculiar way, and Lawton's de- 
scription shows that Penn opposed in this case as 
he did in the seizure of Magdalen College, — first op- 
292 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

posing, and then consenting when he saw opposition 
was in vain. 

Penn would get Lawton to write him letters op- 
posing unpopular measures, and these letters, being 
unsigned, Penn would show to the king, appar- 
ently for the purpose of dissuading the king from 
his purpose. He also took Lawton to see the king, 
and the king listened to Lawton's arguments. Law- 
ton says he is convinced that Penn had no hand in 
setting on foot the measure for forcing the boroughs, 
and no doubt this is true. But after Lawton had 
been to the king, and expressed his mind very 
bluntly, Penn came to him with a message that the 
king was pleased with his sincerity, and wished to 
give him a place. "The king," Penn is reported to 
have said, "hath a mind thou shouldst be in com- 
mission of the peace and a member of the next 
Parliament, and a corporation will be found where 
some honest gentleman will bring thee in." 

This was nothing more nor less than an attempt on 
the part of the king to buy up Lawton's opposition, 
and make him a member of his regulated Parliament, 
which was to do his bidding ; and Penn was assisting 
in it and carrying the message. Lawton rejected 
the offer with indignation. "As to being a member 
of Parliament, I told him I should be glad if a regu- 
lated Parliament did any good, but by the help of 
God I would never make one amongst them." 

Lawton's memoir praises Penn, and at the same 
time reveals his rather unpraiseworthy political con- 
duct. Apparently what Lawton means is that Penn's 
intentions were honest in spite of his conduct. 
293 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Lawton ridiculed the Declaration of Indulgence, and 
expected that Penn would not like him for it, which 
shows very clearly what Penn's position was in regard 
to that instrument. But Penn did not change his 
feeling towards him ; pressed him again to take an 
office under James ; and in describing this Lawton 
shows that Penn was quite intimate with the infamous 
Jeffi-eys. 

" But all that Mr. Penn replied upon hearing both was that I was 
an honest man, but would go my own way ; and instead of growing 
colder, offered me, the very next time he came down into the country, 
to bring my Lord Chancellor Jefferies, who did not (tho' he went him- 
self too much in with the court) mislike a man for being stiff for the 
Church of England, to junket, as Mr. Penn called it, one evening ; 
and Mr. Penn again pressed me to come into Parliament, and the 
commission of the peace ; I declined both." (Memoirs, Penna. Hist. 
Soc, vol. iii. part ii. p. 230.) 

Penn and Jeffreys were evidently working hard to 
gather in Lawton to the side of King James. As to 
Lawton and Penn associating in a friendly manner 
with such a man as Jeffreys, that would not have 
been much thought of then, because cruelty and no- 
torious oppression and corruption by a judge were 
not so shocking as they have since become, Jef- 
freys's reputation has grown worse with time. The 
people of his day thought him a very wrong-headed 
man ; but they would probably read with surprise 
the modern frantic denunciations of him. 

As to the imprisonment of the seven bishops, 
Lawton assures us that Penn was from the first op- 
posed to their commitment, and on the day when the 
king's son was born he went to the king "and pressed 
him exceedingly to set them at liberty," as an act 
294 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

which would be so popular with the people that their 
good-will towards the king might be restored. But 
James had for advisers the Jesuits, who were deter- 
mined through him to establish the papacy in Eng- 
land. They failed, as their methods in the long run 
have usually failed, and they ruined James. Was 
it not, however, entirely natural that Penn should be 
thought to be one of them. His protests against the 
measures of the king were in secret and known only 
to a few of his friends. Before the public and the 
world he stood as at best the mediator who was try- 
ing to make the king's measures palatable to the 
people ; and most people very naturally inferred that 
he inspired and approved of those measures. 

They soon discovered that James had sent him to 
the Prince of Orange to persuade that prince to 
agree that the tests that kept the papists out of 
office should be removed, and* they discovered also 
that he was the author of the anonymous pamphlet 
already mentioned, " Good Advice to the Church of 
England," in which he advocated the removal of the 
tests and laughed at the fears of papal supremacy 
as childish. Thousands of people in England were 
then as thoroughly convinced that Penn was a 
Jesuit in disguise as we are now to the contrary. 
He had taken orders, they said, in Rome, where he 
had been granted a dispensation to marry, and he 
had since then frequently officiated as a priest in 
the celebration of the mass at Whitehall, St. James's, 
and other places in England. If we had lived then, 
we should probably have had the same opinion they 
held ; for the Jesuits at that time were not the com- 
295 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

paratively insignificant and harmless body they have 
since become. 

They pervaded the poHtical and social Hfe of all 
Europe. Their methods and purposes were then 
rapidly reaching that enormity for which they were 
afterwards expelled from every country of Europe, 
and for a time from the Roman church itself They 
adopted every imaginable form of disguise. Some 
became Baptist or Puritan preachers, some were 
gay, swearing cavaliers ; some became domestic ser- 
vants. They were the most learned, astute, untiring, 
and unscrupulous of men. Their disguises were so 
perfect and in many cases so dramatic that the 
people had grown accustomed to look for them in 
the most unexpected forms and places. It would 
be just like one of them to take the role of the most 
strenuous advocate of religious liberty in England, 
to be the sort of man in every way that Penn was, and 
in that guise, along with private intimacy with the 
king, secure the abolition of the tests and let all his 
brother Jesuits into power. 

In the autumn of 1688, a few weeks before the 
Prince of Orange landed at Torbay to drive James 
from the throne, these suspicions against Penn be- 
came so wide-spread that some of his friends tried 
to save him from them by giving him a chance to 
contradict them in writing and explain his relations 
with the king. William Popple, secretary of the 
Privy Council's Committee on Trade and Planta- 
tions, wrote him a long, formal, but beautiful letter, 
asking him, in the gentlest and most friendly manner, 
if he was aware of the condition in which he stood. 

2q6 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

The consciousness of innocence, Popple said, was 
giving him too great a contempt for slanders. It 
was possible to be too serene and sublime. An un- 
swerving prosecution of an honest purpose was well, 
but at the same time a man should guard his repu- 
tation. He was deep in intimacy with a king who 
was believed by the whole kingdom to be establish- 
ing popery by force as the national religion. He 
had so great a part in the councils of that king that 
it was difficult for people to suppose he was anything 
but an absolute papist. "Your post is too consider- 
able," said Popple, " for a papist of an ordinary form, 
and therefore you must be a Jesuit." 

He was offering a most melancholy prospect to his 
friends, for he was giving his enemies the opportu- 
nity they desired of destroying him. The aspersion 
of Jesuitism that had been cast upon him was off- 
setting the benefit of all his efforts in the great cause 
of liberty of conscience, the cause to which he had 
devoted his life. 

" It has weakened the force of your endeavors, obstructed their 
effect, and contributed greatly to disappoint this poor nation of that 
inestimable happiness, and secure establishment, which I am per- 
suaded you designed, and which all good and wise men agree, that a 
just and inviolable liberty of conscience would infallibly produce. 
I heartily wish this consideration had been sooner laid to heart and 
that some demonstrative evidence of your sincerity in the profession 
you make had accompanied all your endeavors for liberty." 

In his reply to this letter Penn laid aside the set 
phraseology of his sect, and wrote in that plain but 
soft and pleasant English he could at times com- 
mand. He denied, of course, in the fullest and most 
297 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

detailed manner, that he was a papist or a Jesuit, and 
he denied each one of the particular instances of 
Jesuitism brought against him : his officiating as a 
priest, his dispensation to marry, or his having kid- 
napped one formerly a monk out of Pennsylvania to 
deliver him over to his enemies in England. 

" The only reason that I can apprehend, they have to repute me a 
Roman Catholic, is my frequent going to Whitehall, a place no more 
forbid to me than to the rest of the world, who yet, it seems, find 
much fairer quarter. I have almost continually had one business or 
other there for our Friends, whom I ever served with a steady solici- 
tation through all times since I was of their communion. I had also 
a great many personal good offices to do, upon a principle of charity, 
for people of all persuasions ; thinking it a duty to improve the little 
interest I had for the good of those that needed it, especially the 
poor. I must add something of my own affairs, too, though I must 
own, if I may without vanity, that they have ever had the least share 
of my thoughts or pains, or else they would not have still depended 
as they yet do." 

Then he goes on to tell why he likes King James 
and believes in him. Cannot, he asks, " a Protestant 
dissenter be dutiful, thankful, and serviceable to the 
king though he be of the Roman Catholic com- 
munion. We hold not our property or protection 
from him by our persuasion, and therefore his per- 
suasion should not be the measure of our allegiance." 
This was a most extraordinary sentence to write in 
view of recent events. The king's persuasion was 
leading him to violate property in the most outra- 
geous manner. He was taking the colleges of the 
Church of England away from their lawful owners to 
give them to papists. He was compelling towns to 
surrender their charters so that he might turn them 
298 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

over to papist officials. He was packing Parlia- 
ment by bribery and corruption that it might turn 
over to papists the livings, church buildings, and 
other property of the Church of England. Re- 
ligious persuasion was becoming very closely con- 
nected with property rights and allegiance. 
But Penn goes on. 

" I am sorry to see so many, that seem fond of the reformed re- 
ligion by their disaffection to him [the king] recommend it so ill. 
Whatever practices of Roman Catholics we might reasonably object 
against, and no doubt but such there are, yet he has disclaimed and 
reprehended those ill things by his declared opinion against persecu- 
tion, by the ease in which he actually indulges all dissenters, and by 
the confirmation he offers in Parliament for the security of the Protes- 
tant religion and liberty of conscience. And in his honor, as well as 
in my own defence, I am obliged in conscience to say, that he has 
ever declared to me it was his opinion ; and on all occasions, when 
Duke, he never refused me the repeated proofs of it, as often as I had 
any poor sufferers for conscience' sake to solicit his help for." 

This was certainly a strange statement for Penn 
to make. It meant that he took the king's word for 
everything and shut his eyes to the facts ; took his 
word that he was not forcing popery on colleges, 
Parliament, government, and Church of England ; 
calmly looked at him doing it, and said he could not 
see it. It meant also that for the sake of securing 
present relief to the Quakers and some other dis- 
senters, he was willing that the king should estab- 
lish popery in the Church of England and in the 
government. 

In another passage he argues with rather too much 
subtlety against the opinion that he was supporting 
the measures of James. 

299 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

" Is anything more foolish as well as false, than that because I am 
often at Whitehall, therefore I must be the author of all that is done 
there that does not please abroad ? But supposing some such things 
to have been done, pray tell me, if I am bound to oppose anything 
that I am not called to do. I never was a member of council, cabi- 
net, or committee, where the affairs of the kingdom are transacted. 
I have had no office or trust, and consequently nothing can be said 
to be done by me. . . . However, one thing I know, that I have 
everywhere most religiously observed, and endeavored in conversa- 
tion with persons of all ranks and opinions, to allay heats, and 
moderate extremes, even in the politics." 

All this sounds very pretty and innocent. But if 
he was so entirely free from responsibility, and taking 
no part whatever in the affairs of James, why did he 
publish anonymously that pamphlet, " Good Advice 
to the Church of England," advocating the abolition 
of the tests, and ridiculing the notion that James 
would force popery on the government ? Why did 
he advise the fellows of Magdalen to give up their 
college to James, on the ground that two or three 
colleges would satisfy the papists? Why was he 
bringing Charlewood Lawton to the king to have 
him argue against the king's measures? Why was 
he procuring Lawton to write letters to be read to 
the king ? and why at the king's request did he ask 
Lawton to accept an office which would compel 
Lawton to change his opinions. 

According to the diary of Narcissus Luttrell, Penn 
himself had been appointed to an office before Pop- 
ple's letter was written. Under date of August 8, 
1688,* Luttrell says, " Mr. Penn the Quaker is to be 
superintendent of the revenues of excise and hearth 

*Vol. i. p. 453. 
300 



DESPOTISM OF JAMES II 

money," and September 17,* "Mr. Penn is made 
supervisor of the excise and hearth money." Penn, 
however, in his letter to Popple says, "I have had 
no office or trust." 

But hear his final excuse, which I think shows the 
real cause of his infatuation. 

" To this let me add the relation my father had to this king's 
service, his particular favor in getting me released out of the Tower 
of London in 1669, my father's humble request to him upon his death 
bed to protect me from the inconveniences and troubles my persuasion 
might expose me to, and his friendly promise to do it and exact per- 
formance of it from the moment I addressed myself to him; I say 
when all this is considered, anybody, that has the least pretence to 
good nature, gratitude, or generosity, must needs know how to inter- 
pret my access to the king." 

I know of no other explanation than the above 
that will fully account for Penn's blind determination 
to stand by the king no matter what he did. If a 
man was once his friend, he never could let him go. 
Even men, like some of those he appointed deputy 
governors of Pennsylvania, to whom he owed no 
gratitude, could not forfeit his friendship even when 
they were wrecking his property and interests. He 
would cling to them in spite of everything, dismiss 
them at last only when compelled to it, and do so 
with the greatest regret. But in the case of those 
to whom he felt bound by gratitude, and such life- 
long gratitude as bound him to King James, it was 
simply impossible and out of the question for him to 
see any fault in them. His sense of gratitude and 
affection in such cases was a more consuming passion 
than his devotion to religious liberty. 

* vol. i. p. 461. 
301 



XIX 

SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

The five years following that autumn of 1688, 
when James II. fled to France, were a sad time 
for Penn ; but his biographers, in their account of 
this period, have not dealt honestly with their read- 
ers. In the hope of exalting their hero they have 
obscured and confused the evidence and omitted 
parts of it, as they pleased. This method, however, 
is apt to be more of an injury than an advantage, 
for when the truth comes out it seems disgraceful 
from the attempt at concealment. For my own part, 
I cannot see that there was anything to conceal, and 
I think Penn's reputation has been seriously injured 
by the disingenuous way in which this part of his 
life has been treated. 

Penn did not believe in William III. or in the 
revolution of 1688, which brought him to the throne. 
His whole course of conduct proves this most clearly, 
and I cannot see the slightest use in attempting to 
deny or conceal his position. He believed, on the 
contrary, in James II., whom he personally liked, 
whom he supported to the last, and whom he would 
have been glad to have had come back and displace 
King William. He always insisted on believing that 
there would be more toleration and liberty under 
302 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

James than under William. There is no doubt that 
this was his opinion. But it was merely a political 
opinion, and there is no necessity for assuming, as 
his biographers do, that it was an infamous crime 
which must be kept in the background. It was not 
a crime at all. It was merely a mistake, a political 
mistake, from our point of view. There were many 
who thought it not even a mistake. 

Penn has not told us what he thought and felt 
when his royal friend and benefactor, the friend 
of his father, fled the country. That flight left him 
in a very awkward situation. There were several 
courses he could pursue. He could follow his royal 
friend to France, make one of his court there, at the 
palace Louis XIV. gave him to live in, and assist him 
in making war on England to win back his crown. 
But that would not have been Quaker-like ; it would 
have been inconsistent with Penn's life-long position 
as protector and representative of his sect in Eng- 
land ; and what would have become of Pennsylva- 
nia, forfeited to the crown for the treason of its pro- 
prietor. It was necessary, it would seem, for him to 
stay at home ; and if he stayed at home, what should 
he do? 

Most of those who had been friends of James, 
and had decided to stay at home, went quickly to 
William and made their peace with him, promised 
to serve him, to be his friend and James's enemy, 
and they were given places in his household and 
government Macaulay and other writers have given 
us amusing descriptions of the sudden way in which 
these distinguished men changed their affections and 
303 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

opinions and fell on their knees before the new 
monarch. But Penn was not one of them. He was 
incapable of that sort of thing. 

He had never liked William ; and he did not be- 
lieve that he would establish religious liberty. In 
his pamphlet, "A Persuasive to Moderation," written 
in the beginning of the reign of James, Penn speaks 
of the growing power of William as "an ebb to 
the strength" of Holland. He was evidently one 
of those who thought William was a mere self- 
seeker, so infatuated with the pursuit of glory that 
he would be an injury to both Holland and England. 
Penn liked him no better when he marched into 
London over the fallen hopes and fortunes of his 
friend James. To say that he did not rush to him 
with the others and tell him a pack of sycophantic 
lies may seem like small praise, but in that age of 
rebellions and revolutions, when public men were 
constantly shifting their ground, it is more to Penn's 
credit than we might at first suppose. 

Penn could have stayed at home as some did and 
plot for the restoration of James. But that was a 
dangerous game. It would also have been incon- 
sistent with Quaker principles and inconsistent with 
Penn's long announced position, that he was a medi- 
ator and not an active participant in politics, one 
whose mission was to soften the violence of rebels 
and of partisans in the interest of peace. 

There was, therefore, only one course left that he 

could take, and that was to stay at home, follow his 

usual avocations so far as possible, neither toady to 

William nor plot to restore James, and at the same 

304 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

time admit that James was still his friend, and that 
he did not believe in the revolution which had de- 
prived him of the crown. This was a difficult posi- 
tion to maintain, because ordinary minds would not 
believe in its sincerity. They would insist that he 
must be plotting ; that it was impossible for him to 
stay at home and be the friend of James and not 
plot for his return. Nevertheless, this difficult course 
is, I think, the one Penn laid out for himself, and the 
reader must form his own opinion as to how closely 
he lived up to it. 

On the loth of December, 1688, soon after William 
III. entered London, Penn was arrested while walk- 
ing, it is said, in Whitehall, the place where he had 
carried on his courtier occupations under James, 
and where he was probably now trying to attend to 
some of the remains of that business. He was taken 
immediately before the Privy Council, which was 
then sitting, and in answer to questions he is reported 
to have said, — 

" He had done nothing but what he could answer before God and 
all the princes in the world ; that he loved his country and the 
Protestant religion above his life, and had never acted against either ; 
that all he had ever aimed at in his public endeavors was no other 
than what the prince himself had declared for [religious liberty] ; 
that King James had always been his friend, and his father's friend ; 
and that in gratitude he himself was the king's, and did ever, as 
much as in him lay, influence him to his true interest." 

This statement seems to have satisfied the king. 
It will be observed that there is not a word of flat- 
tery or even compliment to William, or a promise 
of allegiance to him. He was the sort of king, 
so 305 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

however, who could appreciate such straightforward- 
ness in a subject. But Penn was at that time under 
a terrible cloud of suspicion. All England was 
screaming Jesuit and papist at him. It would be 
unwise to assume at once that he would be a safe 
man, and declare him innocent in the face of the 
popular clamor against him. So he was compelled 
to give security for his appearance the first day of 
the next term. When he appeared at the ap- 
pointed time, his case was continued to Easter term, 
and then, no witnesses appearing against him, he 
was discharged. 

Soon afterwards, in the year 1688, the Parliament 
passed the famous Toleration Act which William 
had promised when he announced that he had come 
to drive James from the throne. This act estab- 
lished religious liberty by law. All dissenters ex- 
cept Roman Catholics and Unitarians were given 
the right to worship as they pleased ; but they 
must take out licenses for their meeting-houses or 
chapels, take the oath of allegiance, and not worship 
behind closed doors, a precaution considered neces- 
sary at that time to prevent plots against the gov- 
ernment. The Quakers were allowed to affirm in- 
stead of taking an oath. But the test oaths which 
kept the Roman Catholics and all other dissenters 
from holding office were retained as a safeguard, 
proved by terrible experience to be necessary in 
that age. 

That was the end of religious persecution in Eng- 
land. From that date to this the British people 
have enjoyed the fullest liberty in worship, and the 
306 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

tests which kept the Roman Catholics and other 
dissenters out of office have been slowly relaxed as 
the desire of the Roman church for seizing political 
power became less earnest and its ability to attain 
that end was weakened. 

So the great object of Penn's life was accom- 
plished, and by whom? Not by his life-long friend 
James, from whom apparently he expected it, but by 
James's implacable enemy, William, the Dutchman. 
What Penn had been trying to accomphsh through 
despotic declarations of indulgence, and what he 
believed would never be accomplished in any other 
way was now suddenly accomplished for all time 
by an honest law passed by Parliament without any 
attempt at despotism. 

Penn's biographers at this point usually introduce 
a few conventional sentences to the effect that this 
great constitutional change must have been highly 
gratifying to one who had labored so long to that 
end, and so on. Clarkson goes so far as to assert 
that Penn was really the author of the Toleration 
Act, and had convinced William of the necessity of 
it. This is, of course, ridiculous, for William got his 
notions of liberty without any aid from Penn. 

Dixon says that Penn was very much pleased with 
the results of the Toleration Act. But this is again 
mere assumption, for Penn was entirely silent on the 
subject. There is not a word of his that can be quoted 
for or against it. It may be that he thought it well 
enough so far as it went, but laboring under the de- 
lusion that James and the Jesuits would have been 
contented with a few colleges and a few offices, he 
307 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

would have preferred that the tests be repealed, 
and a freedom in office-holding allowed, which has 
scarcely yet been attained in England. Or, more 
likely, he was so firm in his affection and friendship 
for James that he could not be enthusiastic about 
this great boon of liberty because it came from 
James's detestable enemy. 

Besides the Toleration Act, Parliament passed a 
few months later what has ever since been known as 
the Bill of Rights, a famous document, which, after 
describing all the sins of James's despotism, proceeds 
to abolish and make them odious. No king shall 
ever again suspend or dispense with a law on any 
pretext, or prosecute a citizen or bishop for petition- 
ing, or create by his own authority an ecclesiastical 
court, or levy taxes, or keep a standing army with- 
out the consent of Parliament, or pack juries, or 
Parliaments. Freedom of speech in Parliament 
must never again be interfered with ; nor shall any 
future king disarm Protestants while allowing papists 
to retain their arms, nor grant away to his favor- 
ites the fines and forfeitures of persons accused of 
crimes ; nor shall there be any more excessive bail 
or fines, or cruel and illegal punishments. That 
these things may be the more secure, frequent Par- 
liaments shall be held ; and that they may be doubly 
secure, the British crown shall never again descend 
to a person who is not a Protestant. 

This document was really a sort of British Decla- 
ration of Independence, and modern England has 
grown up under it. The reforms which it established 
were the very ones for which Penn in his younger 
308 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

days had ardently contended ; and it is a sad reflec- 
tion that he was now so infatuated with Jacobitism 
that he could scarcely appreciate them. 

During the remainder of the year 1689 and un- 
til the spring of 1690 he was undisturbed by the 
government, and during that time he was probably 
living in the countr>^ at Worminghurst. But during 
this period there is some evidence of an expression 
of opinion on his part which Macaulay considers as 
evidence that he was plotting to restore James and 
doing " everything in his power to bring a foreign 
army into the heart of his own country." The only 
evidence Macaulay has is a letter written by Avaux, 
the French ambassador, to Louis XIV., June 5, 
1689, in which Avaux says that he encloses some 
notes of news from England and Scotland, and then 
adds that the beginning of his news from England 
is taken from a letter written by Penn, the original 
of which he has seen. In the notes enclosed the 
news relating to England taken from Penn's letter is 
merely to the effect that the Prince of Orange begins 
to be disgusted with the English, and the aspect of 
affairs is changing rapidly, as is the way with these 
islanders, and that the prince's health is bad. 

Macaulay assumes that Penn sent this letter to 
James. But there is no evidence that he did. Avaux 
does not say so. The letter may have been written 
to anybody, and what it says was well known, — 
namely, that William's health was bad, that the 
people were not so enthusiastic for him as they had 
been, and that he was becoming disgusted with 
them. Penn, or anybody, William's best friend or 
309 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

William himself, might have written such statements. 
There is not the slightest evidence of a plot in 
them. 

In the spring of 1690, however, the government 
intercepted a letter from James, asking Penn "to 
come to his assistance in the present state and con- 
dition he was in, and express the resentments of his 
favor and benevolence." This was very serious, and 
Penn was ordered to appear before the Privy Council, 
Our authority for what happened on that occasion is 
Gerard Croese's " General History of the Quakers," 
published in 1696. 

" Upon this, Penn being cited to appear, was asked why King 
James wrote unto him, he answered he could not hinder such a thing. 
Being further questioned what resentments these were which the late 
king seemed to desire of him, he answered he knew not, but said he 
supposed King James would have him to endeavor his restitution, 
and that though he could not decline the suspicion, yet he could 
avoid the guilt, and since he had loved King James in his prosperity 
he should not hate him in his adversity, yea he loved him as yet for 
many favors he had conferred on him, though he would not join with 
him in what concerned the state of the kingdom. He owned he had 
been much obliged to King James, and that he would reward his kind- 
ness by any private office as far as he could, observing inviolably and 
entirely that duty to the public and government which was equally 
incumbent upon all subjects, and therefore that he had never the 
vanity to think of endeavoring to restore him that crown which was 
fallen from his head, so that nothing in that letter could .at all seem 
to fix guilt upon him." (Croese, p. 113.) 

This was certainly a very frank and honest state- 
ment, and it describes the very wise position of 
friendly neutrality between William and James which 
Penn intended to maintain. The letter James wrote 
was not by itself conclusive evidence of plotting on 
310 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

the part of Penn, for, as he said, he could not pre- 
vent the banished king from writing to him. 

In the biography by Besse prefixed to Penn's 
Works, we are told that when first brought before 
the council on this occasion, Penn asked to be heard 
in the presence of the king, and this request was 
granted. The examination lasted, it is said, two 
hours ; and a great deal must have been said in that 
time ; but Besse gives no report of it, nor does he 
mention or refer in any way to the report which we 
have quoted as given by Croese. Possibly Penn 
may have told some one the substance of his an- 
swers to the king and council, and Croese may have 
heard it at second or third hand. Besse goes on to 
say that after the two hours' examination William 
was inclined to acquit Penn entirely, but to please 
some of the council he was held upon bail for a 
while, and in Trinity term of the same year dis- 
charged. 

Croese is not the best sort of authority ; but as he 
and Besse were contemporaries of Penn, I am en- 
tirely willing to accept what they say. But there I 
draw the line. Clarkson, who wrote in 1814, says 
that Penn was arrested on that occasion " by a body 
of military ;" but Croese says only that he was 
cited to appear, and Besse that he was brought 
before the council. In Dixon's biography, written 
in 1856, Clarkson's body of military becomes a 
band of military which "one day beset his house 
and placed him under arrest ;" and instead of quoting 
what Croese says of the examination, which is all we 
know of it, Dixon paraphrases it into a very dra- 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

matic conversation, stating at one point, " The Lords 
were startled at this frank interpretation ;" and again, 
"William was struck with a defence so unusual." 
There would be no harm in Dixon using his imagi- 
nation, if he would warn the reader of it ; but he 
states his suppositions and guesses as if they were 
facts of the examination ; and this is not the only 
episode of Penn's life which has been developed in 
this way. 

In the summer of this year, 1690, James invaded 
Ireland with an army, and William went there to 
meet him. The French admiral, having beaten the 
combined Dutch and English fleets, was hovering off 
the coast. Queen Mary was left alone in London to 
govern as best she could ; and as the plots for the 
overthrow of herself and her husband thickened, 
Penn was suspected, along with Lord Clarendon, 
Lord Preston, and about fifteen others. He was ar- 
rested by proclamation, July 18, 1690, and remained 
many months in prison until tried at the close of the 
year. Several of those arrested with him were con- 
victed, and one of them was executed, but he him- 
self was acquitted. Lord Preston, who turned state's 
evidence, seems to have had nothing against him 
except conversations, in which Penn had mentioned 
long lists of persons who were friendly to King James. 
Such statements, of course, amounted to nothing. 

Penn, being friendly to James, and disliking Wil- 
liam, often, I have no doubt, spoke of those who 
favored James's return. He would not, as I have 
already said, assist actively in accomplishing that 
return ; but from all his previous conduct and words 
312 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

I think we can say he would have been glad to see 
it accomplished. He naturally often spoke favor- 
ably of James, and spies and informers might easily 
construe his words as evidence of a plot. 

It had now become evident that William, in be- 
coming king, had other purposes to accomplish be- 
sides delivering England from a tyrant. He intended 
to use England in an alliance with the Protestant 
powers to crush France. The war was already begin- 
ning, and the English people foresaw the expenses 
of a great army with increased taxation. This 
alienated not a few friends of William, who had as- 
sisted in bringing him to the throne. We would 
naturally suppose that it would alienate Penn more 
than ever, and he would naturally be brought into 
association with those who, like himself, were friendly 
to James. He could not very well avoid talking to 
them ; some of them might be plotting for his old 
friend's return ; and from his association with such 
people it is not surprising that the government often 
suspected him. 

But for a short time after his trial, at the close of 
1690, the government seems to have been satisfied 
that he was altogether innocent of plotting, for al- 
most immediately after the trial the secretary of state 
granted him an order for a convoy to take him to 
Pennsylvania. He published proposals for setders, 
a number of whom he intended to take with him, 
and he was soon to depart. But George Fox died 
on the 13th of January, and on the i6th Penn 
preached at his funeral. Soon after the ceremony 
he learned that a warrant had been issued for him, 
3U 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

and that the officers intended to take him at the 
funeral, but, mistaking the hour, came too late. 

What the evidence was on this occasion we do 
not know, for Penn did not give the officers another 
chance to take him. He went into hiding, an act 
which some of his biographers have attempted to 
obscure by calling it "retirement," "hving in seclu- 
sion," or "taking private lodgings." But it is better 
to state the fact and truth. No one now knows 
where he went. Clarkson, however, informs us with- 
out hesitation that he took " a private lodging in 
London ;" and all the biographers seem to be 
agreed that during the three years he remained in 
concealment he was in London all the time. Stough- 
ton describes the London of that day with its queer 
secluded courts and alleys with rambling, overhang- 
ing houses, where, he says, Penn could have been 
as effectually concealed as in a wilderness. 

But this is mere picturesque guessing. In a 
letter written towards the close of his concealment, 
Penn says, " I have been above these three years 
hunted up and down, and could never be allowed 
to live quietly in city or country." Narcissus Lut- 
trell, in his diary, says that at one time during his 
concealment, Penn went to France. So it would 
seem that he was constantly on the move, and did 
not remain all the time in London. There is no 
doubt, however, that he was at times in London ; 
and he seems to have had some special place of 
concealment there ; for after the king withdrew his 
suspicions, and concealment was no longer neces- 
sary, he says that he preached in London and then 
3H 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

went "to visit the sanctuary of my solitude." He 
adds, "and after that to see my poor wife and 
children ; the eldest being with me all this while." 

Exactly why Penn hid himself during those three 
years we shall never know. Besse, in the life of him 
already often referred to, says that the warrant had 
been issued on information furnished by the notori- 
ous Fuller, who made a business, like Titus Oates, 
of accusing prominent people. In the absence of a 
modern detective system the government was com- 
pelled to rely on these irregular informers. Fuller 
was not long afterwards declared, by Parliament, to 
be a cheat and impostor, and punished. Besse's 
statement has been accepted by all subsequent 
biographers and they argue that Penn was unwilling 
to take the chances of a trial on evidence furnished 
by this wretch, and so resolved to escape arrest alto- 
gether. 

Fuller was, however, not then known to be so in- 
famous as he was afterwards proved. Macaulay 
points out that, according to his own life of himself, 
he was not at that time in England, and he also cites 
a letter written by Caermarthen to King William, 
February 3, saying that the only witness against 
Penn was Preston. Penn nowhere says that this 
warrant was based on Fuller's information. He says 
that he was indicted in Ireland on information fur- 
nished by Fuller and some others ; but that was an- 
other matter. It should also be observed that Fuller 
was discredited a few months after this warrant for 
Penn was issued ; but Penn remained in hiding for 
three years. There was evidently some reason for 
315 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

this concealment which is not now apparent, and 
Fuller seems to have had little or nothing to do 
with it. 

Nothing that Penn has left in writing throws much 
light upon it ; for he refers to his concealment only 
in general terms, an unfortunate practice which he 
and the Quakers indulged in too much on many oc- 
casions. He had, of course, to give up his voyage 
to Pennsylvania, and, writing of it to the province, 
he says, — 

" By this time thou wilt have heard of the renewal of my troubles, 
the only hinderance of my return, being in the midst of my prepara- 
tions with a great company of adventurers when they came upon me. 
The jealousies of some and unworthy dealings of others, have made 
way for them ; but under and over it all the ancient Rock has been 
my shelter and comfort ; and I hope yet to see your faces with our 
ancient satisfaction." (Janney, 359.) 

In a letter written May 30, 1691, to the Yearly 
Meeting of Quakers in London, he says, — 

" My privacy is not because men have sworn truly, but falsely 
against me ; ' for wicked men have laid in wait for me and false 
witnesses have laid to my charge things that I knew not.' " (Janney, 
356.) 

This last quotation would include an accusation 
like Fuller's ; and yet if Fuller had been the cause 
he would probably have named him as he did in 
speaking of the indictment in Ireland. In the first 
quotation it will be observed he refers his troubles 
to "The jealousies of some and unworthy dealings 
of others." Judging from all the evidence, which 
we shall have more in detail later, it seems to me 
316 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

that the go.vernment had information about him, not 
merely from Fuller, but from other sources which 
made them very suspicious of him. Their suspi- 
cion was not strong enough to make them hot in 
his pursuit. It was William's policy to be very easy 
and generous with his enemies unless they became 
decidedly dangerous. The government did not con- 
sider it essential to the safety of the throne to seize 
and try Penn at once. They were willing he should 
hide, and meantime they could await developments. 

Soon after Penn's concealment a plot was dis- 
covered to bring over King James in the absence of 
William, who had gone to The Hague to attend a 
conference of princes. It was thought that with 
William out of the country, only a small army left, 
and the people discontented with the four millions 
of taxes William's government had imposed, it would 
be only necessary for James to arrive suddenly with 
a very small force to have the whole nation flock to 
him and achieve a complete revolution in his favor. 
" The men who laid this design," says Burnet, " were 
the Earl of Clarendon, the Bishop of Ely, the Lord 
Preston, and his brother Mr. Graham, and Pen, the 
famous Quaker." 

There is no doubt that the first four were guilty. 
Preston was caught red-handed with the papers in 
his possession. He saved his life by turning state's 
evidence, and named Penn, among others, as one of 
those in the plot. The papers found on him were 
also believed by the government to implicate Penn, 
and he was included in the proclamation for the 
arrest of all these conspirators. 
3^7 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Penn may have had some remote and indefinite 
connection with the plan ; but he was never proved 
to have been guilty. It would be impossible, how- 
ever, to have convinced Burnet and other adherents 
of William, including Lord Macaulay, that Penn was 
not as guilty as the others. Burnet adds to his ac- 
count of the plot, "The Bishop of Ely, Grimes, and 
Pen absconded." 

Penn from his hiding-place sent his brother-in-law 
to Henry Sydney, brother of his old deceased friend, 
Algernon Sydney. Henry Sydney, who was about 
this time made Lord Romney, had been very instru- 
mental in bringing over William, and now stood high 
in his government. He describes his interview with 
Penn in a letter to King William of February 27, 
i69f. 

"About ten days ago, Mr. Penn sent his brother-in-law, Mr. 
Lowther, to me to let me know that he would be very glad to see 
me, if I would give him leave, and promise to let him return with- 
out being molested; I sent him word I would, if the queen would 
permit it ; he then desired me not to mention it to anybody but the 
queen ; I said I would not : A Monday he sent to me to know what 
time I would appoint; I named Wednesday in the evening, and ac- 
cordingly I went to the place at the time, where I found him just as 
he used to be, not at all disguised, but in the same clothes and the 
same humour I formerly have seen him in : it would be too long 
for your Majesty to read a full account of our discourse, but in short 
it was this, that he was a true and faithful servant of King William 
and Queen Mary, and if he knew anything that was prejudicial to 
them or their government he would readily discover it : he protested 
in the presence of God that he knew of no plot, nor did he believe 
there was any one in Europe, but what King Lewis hath laid, and 
he was of opinion that King James knew the bottom of this plot as 
little as other people : he saith, he knows your Majesty hath a great 
many enemies ; and some that came over with you, and some that 
joined you soon after your arrival, he was sure were more inveterate 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

against you, and more dangerous than the Jacobites, for he saith that 
there is not one man amongst them that hath common understand- 
ing. To the letters that were found with my Lord Preston, and the 
paper of the conference, he would not give any positive answer, but 
said if he could have the honor to see the king, and that he would 
be pleased to believe the sincerity of what he saith, and pardon the 
ingenuity of what he confessed, he would freely tell everything he 
knew of himself, and other things that would be much for his 
Majesty's service and interest to know, but if he cannot obtain this 
favour he must be obliged to quit the kingdom ; which he is very 
unwilling to do. He saith he might have gone away twenty times 
if he had pleased, but he is so confident of giving your Majesty sat- 
isfaction if you would hear him, that he was resolved to expect your 
return before he took any sort of measures. What he intends to do, 
is all he can do for your service, for he can't be a witness if he 
would, it being, as he saith, against his conscience and his principles 
to take an oath. This is the sum of our conference, and I am sure 
your Majesty will judge as you ought to do of it without any of my 
reflections." 

This letter shows conclusively that there was other 
evidence against Penn besides what the notorious 
Fuller may have said. Sydney says that Penn would 
give no positive answer " to the letters that were 
found with my Lord Preston and the paper of the 
conference." How far the letters criminated Penn 
we cannot tell. Lord Preston, when brought before 
William to confess and save his life, had directly 
implicated Penn, as we are informed by Dalrymple. 

"He confessed against the bishops and Clarendon, and many of 
the known partisans of the late king. He then named among his 
associates the Duke of Ormond, the Lords Dartmouth, Macclesfield, 
Brandon, and Mr. Pen, the Quaker; and added. Pen told him, that 
although Lord Dorset and Lord Devonshire had not attended the 
conference, they were of the party." (Dalrymple's Memoirs, part 
ii. book vi. p. 189.) 

The conference here referred to, and also men- 
tioned by Sydney in his interview with Penn, is de- 
319 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

scribed for us by both Dalrymple and Burnet. Some 
of the Whigs, it seems, who had at first favored Wil- 
Ham were now disgusted with him. He was worse, 
they said, than James, who had at least sacredly re- 
.spected the habeas corpus law, which William did 
not respect at all and had suspended ; and they 
went on to tell how he had dragged England into 
a foreign war and allowed the navy, whose glory 
had been unsullied for centuries, to be disastrously 
defeated. They joined themselves to some of the 
Tories who were like-minded, and then called to 
their aid the close adherents of James. A confer- 
ence was held which resulted in sending Preston and 
some others to James with the papers that were 
found on them when they were caught. 

The opinion of the participants in this conference, 
Burnet tells us, was that if James were brought 
back France would be inclined to oblige rather 
than to conquer England, and that James himself 
would be governed by Protestants and follow Prot- 
estant and English interests ; in other words, be a 
liberal tolerant ruler as good as William, and proba- 
bly much better. These are very much like Penn's 
views expressed on various occasions, and it is not 
at all unlikely that he was connected in some way 
with this conference. 

His biographers have, however, carefully obscured 
all this evidence which I have been describing, as if 
any connection with the conference was a frightful 
crime, from the imputation of which they must pro- 
tect Penn at all hazards. But it is not a question 
of crime, it is merely a question of political opinion. 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

There were thousands like Penn who could not then 
see, what ' time has since shown, that William in the 
end would be the safer ruler of England. These 
people were deluded and mistaken, but not crimi- 
nals. 

To show their delusion, Dalrymple goes on to tell 
how the conference proposed that when Louis XIV. 
should start with his army and fleet to help James 
land in England, he must first of all declare reli- 
gious liberty in France, so as to make his invasion 
of England seem less distasteful to English Protes- 
tants. This was precisely the sort of wild notion 
that would attract Penn. He would believe, as he 
had often believed of James's temporary indulgences 
of freedom in England, that the benefits of such 
liberty to trade, commerce, and all the departments 
of life would in a few weeks become so apparent 
that religious freedom would be adopted all over 
Europe. 

The conference also proposed that the French 
king with his fleet and army must act only as a me- 
diator between James and his people, and not as an 
ally of James to conquer the English people, and 
that James must remove all his Roman Catholic ad- 
visers, and publish a declaration that he would send 
back the French fleet and army as soon as William'^ 
forces should withdraw, and that he would refer all 
subjects of dispute to a free Parliament. In other 
words, the wolf would be entirely acceptable as 
king of the sheep if he would promise not to be a 
wolf These were the same delusions Penn had 
been indulging in about James for the last five years, 
321 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

and the conference must have suited him exactly, 
and had his full sympathy if not his active partici- 
pation. 

When Penn said to Sydney that he knew of no 
plot, nor did he believe there was any except what 
King Louis had laid, he was making a rather 
strong statement, at which some have smiled and 
others shaken their heads. Macaulay calls it a 
downright lie, and Penn's biographer, Stoughton, 
admits that he cannot swallow it. Penn may have 
meant that he had no personal or actual knowledge 
of a plot from having participated in it. But that he 
did not know of the existence of plots and their gen- 
eral intention and methods is impossible to suppose. 

In his interview with Sydney he placed himself 
in this position : that he was not plotting, and he 
knew of no plot ; he could explain the evidence 
against him in a private interview with the king, and 
at the same time give the king valuable information, 
but he would not be a witness in a trial because he 
could not take an oath. If not allowed to explain 
himself to the king, he would have to quit the king- 
dom. 

This seems to show that Penn was somewhat 
inclined to turn state's evidence. He evidently 
dreads a formal trial ; but seems to have no fear of 
a direct interview with King William, possibly for 
the reason that William was well known to be very 
liberal and magnanimous in these matters. William 
was then in Ireland, and the interview with him was 
not granted. Penn remained for some months in his 
concealment, or privacy, as he called it, apparently 
322 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

unmolested. The concluding words of Sydney's 
letter are obscure, but they seem to me to imply 
that he thought Penn was not dangerous to the 
government. 

Two months afterwards we have a letter from 
Penn to Sydney, dated " 22d A 91," in which he 
urges Sydney to prevail with the king not to enter- 
tain "hard things" of him which ignorance, art, and 
prejudice have suggested." He asks to be allowed 
to live quietly anywhere in England or America. 
He promises to make no ill use of this favor, and 
adds that the Quakers will be the pledges of his 
peaceful living. He goes on in a veiy humble man- 
ner to say that the king will never regret granting 
this request. Then he hints that it may also be 
worth while for the king to oblige him, and not make 
him and his family any more unhappy than they are 
already. He has gone through enough, he says, in 
the last two years " to have provoked, it may be, a 
better man to a less peaceable and submissive con- 
duct." 

This mysterious mingling of humility and threats 
leaves us more in the dark than ever. Penn in effect 
says, if you continue to oppress me, I may be driven 
from my neutral position and do you an injury. He 
seems to have heard something more about Wil- 
liam's disposition towards him, for he closes by say- 
ing, " I confess I can by no means think him so 
prejudiced or implacable as some represent him in 
my affair ;" and then he adds the hint and threat, 
" therefore I have refused all other offers of future 
safety or accommodation." 
323 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Did Penn still possess some valuable information, 
as he said in the interview with Sydney, and was he 
trying to barter it for his future safety ? 

Sydney is reported by Penn to have answered that 
" the King took it so, as I should not have been dis- 
pleased to have heard it." And later Penn writes 
again to Sydney. 

" Let me be believed and I am ready to appear ; but when I re- 
member how they began to use me in Ireland upon corrupt evidence 
before this business, and what some ill people have threatened here, 
besides those under temptation, and the providences that have succes- 
sively appeared for my preservation under this retirement I can not 
without unjustifiable presumption put myself into the power of my 



This statement seems to imply that there had been 
some previous communication which has not come 
down to us. Penn says that if they will believe 
Avhat he will tell, he is ready to appear. He was 
still trying to avoid a trial. He wished to come 
into the king's presence, tell him everything he 
knew, and have that accepted instead of a trial. 
Or, in other words, if the king would promise him 
that there should be no trial, he would appear and 
tell everything. The rest of the statement seems to 
mean that he has already been so badly handled 
in Ireland on corrupt evidence, and had so many 
narrow escapes in England, that it would be 
foolish to give himself up voluntarily, and foolish 
to appear in any way unless he was promised in- 
demnity. The trouble in Ireland to which he refers 
was that he had been indicted there by the grand 
jury for treasonable conspiracy, and although he 
324 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

had never been tried on the indictment, the rents 
of his Irish estates had been confiscated pending 
the trial. 

What he says about the providences that have 
preserved him since his concealment would seem to 
imply that many things had happened of which no 
account has come down to us. Indeed, the impres- 
sion we obtain from all we read of him at this 
period is that a great deal was going on between 
him and the government of which no record has 
been preserved. He goes on to say in the letter to 
Sydney, just quoted, — 

" Let it be enough to say and that truly, I know of no invasions or 
insurrections, men, money, or arms, for them, or any juncto or con- 
sult, for advice or correspondency in order to it. Nor have I ever 
met with those named as the members of this conspiracy, or prepared 
any measures with them, or any else for the Lord's [Sunderland ?] 
to carry with him as one sense or judgment, nor did I know of his 
being sent for up for any such voyage. If I saw him a few days 
before by his great importunity, as some say, I am able to defend 
[myself] from the imputations cast upon me, and that with great truth 
and sincerity. Though in rigor, perhaps, it may incur the censure 
of a misdemeanor, and therefore I have no reason to own it without 
2 that no hurt should ensue to me." 



Here we have, as it seems, an instance of the sort 
of evidence that, without his being able to prevent it, 
was accumulating against Penn. As an old friend 
of James he could not help occasionally seeing and 
talking with those who were more or less actively 
engaged in plotting for James's return. He admits 
that he has been with one such person whom it 
would have been better not to have seen. He adds, 
also, that this person insisted on seeing him. At the 
325 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

close of the letter he says, " Let me go to America 
or be protected here." 

Sydney's answer was that the king was in too great 
a hurry to attend to this letter, but he would bring 
it to his attention again in Holland, whither he was 
going. Penn says he wrote a similar letter to Lady 
Reneleagh, asking her to intercede on his behalf 
with the queen. "What else can I do?" he says. 
" I know false witnesses are rife against me, both 
here and in Ireland." 

He was evidently in great trouble, and not en- 
joying the easy retirement his biographers would 
have us suppose. These last communications with 
Sydney and Lady Reneleagh were presumably in 
May or June. Two or three months afterwards, in 
September, 1691, Narcissus Luttrell enters in his 
diary for the 1 8th of that month that Penn left Eng- 
land and went to France.* This was in accordance 
with what he had said, that if King William would 
not hear him in person and free him from the danger 
of a trial, he must leave the country. 

This passage in Luttrell' s diary, though noticed by 
Macaulay, is not even mentioned by any of the 
biographers of Penn, nor do they say anything of 
his going to France. If they think that Luttrell is 
mistaken, and that Penn did not leave England, they 
should say so, and give their reasons. But to pass 
by in silence such an important authority as Lut- 
trell is hardly fair to their readers. They make no 

* " Wm Penn the Quaker is got off from Shoreham in Sussex and 
gone to France." (Vol. ii. p. 286.) 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

attempt to explain the long blank in Penn's life from 
the summer of 169 1, when he ceased corresponding 
with Sydney, to the close of 1693, a period of over 
two years, during which we do not know what he was 
doing or where he was. They skip their confiding 
readers across this gulf without letting them know 
of its existence. 

Whether Penn remained any length of time in 
France we cannot tell. There is a letter of his to 
Robert Turner, in Pennsylvania, dated at London, 
November 29, 1692,* a little more than a year after 
Luttrell says he went to France. The date of this 
letter is about a month after King William had de- 
prived him of the government of Pennsylvania ; and 
this loss may have brought him to London. The 
seizure of his government may have been because 
the king had become more suspicious of him. That 
he led a veiy wandering life during all the three 
years of his concealment we are compelled to be- 
lieve from his own words already quoted. 

" I have been above these three years hunted up and down, and 
could never be allowed to live quietly in city or country." (Janney, 
P- 367) 

These words are in a letter not dated, but evi- 
dently, from the contents, written towards the end of 
his concealment. The king and queen, he says, are 
still against him, and apparently so much so that he 
considers himself still in danger. If he could only 
make them believe that he was not working against 
them, and that he would " sequester himself out of 

* Janney, p. 364. 
327 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

the way of having it in his power to offend them," 
they would not, he thinks, be so violently preju- 
diced. But he cannot convince them of it, and so 
commits himself and family to the good and merci- 
ful God. He goes on to tell in full about the 
indictment against him in Ireland and the confisca- 
tion of the rents of his estates there although he 
had not been tried. 

Some time afterwards he appears to have been in 
negotiation with Lord Rochester, to make hig peace 
for him with the king, for we have an undated letter 
of his to Rochester, from which it would seem that 
Rochester had asked whether, if the king acquitted 
him, he would go to Pennsylvania. Penn says 
he certainly would go there, because his affairs in 
that province are in a bad way. But he cannot 
start before the following spring because he must 
first go to Ireland to recover what he could of 
his ruined estates and get rid of the indictment 
there. Meantime, he will follow his "own occa- 
sions in as private and inoffensive a manner as he 
can." 

The government may have thought it a good plan 
to get rid of Penn and all possible danger from 
him by making sure that he would cross three thou- 
sand miles of ocean to Pennsylvania. This Penn 
suspected, and he adds, "I will not receive my liberty 
to go as a condition to go there, and be there as here 
looked upon as an articled exile." 

But the end of his troubles was near. Towards 
the close of the year 1693 the government began 
to consider him as no longer dangerous. Several of 
32S 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

the noblemen to whom he had already several times 
appealed — Rochester, Reneleagh, and Sydney — now 
interceded for him with the king, and he has him- 
self described the result in a letter to his friends in 
Pennsylvania. 

" This comes by the Pennsylvania Merchant, — Harrison, com- 
mander, and C. Saunders, merchant. By them and this know, that 
it hath pleased God to work my enlargement, by three Lords repre- 
senting my case as not only hard, but oppressive; that there was 
nothing against me but what impostors, or those that are fled, or that 
have, since their pardon refused to verify (and asked me pardon for 
saying what they did), alleged against me ; that they had long known 
me, some of them thirty years, and had never known me to do an 
ill thing, but many good oftices ; and that for not being thought to 
go abroad in defiance of the Government, I might and would have 
done it two years ago ; and that I was, therefore, willing to wait to 
go about my affairs, as before, with leave; that I might be the better 
respected in the liberty I took to follow it. 

" King William answered, ' That I was his old acquaintance, as 
well as theirs; and that I might follow my business as freely as 
ever ; and that he had nothing to say to me,' — upon which they 
pressed him to command one of them to declare the same to the 
Secretary of State, Sir John Trenchard, that if I came to him, or 
otherwise, he might signify the same to me, which he also did. The 
Lords were Rochester, Reneleagh, and Sydney; and the last as my 
greatest acquaintance, was to tell the Secretary ; accordingly he 
did ; and the Secretary, after speaking himself, and having it from 
King William's own mouth, appointed me a time to meet him at 
home; and did with the Marquis of W^inchester, and told me I was 
as free as ever ; and as he doubted not my prudence about my quiet 
living, for he assured me I should not be molested or injured in any 
of my affairs, at least while he held that post. The Secretary is my 
old friend, and one I served after the D. of Monmouth and Lord 
Russel's business ; I carried him in my coach to Windsor, and pre- 
sented him to King James; and when the Revolution came, he 
bought my four horses that carried us. It was about three or four 
months before the Revolution. The Lords spoke the 25th of No- 
vember, and he discharged me on the 30th. 

" From the Secretary I went to our meeting, at the Bull and 

Mouth ; thence to visit the sanctuary of my solitude ; and after that 

329 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

to see my poor wife and children ; the eldest being with me all this 
while. My wife is yet weakly ; but I am not without hopes of her 
recovery, who is of the best of wives and women." 

From this passage we learn that, when he was a 
courtier in King James's time, Penn lived in a style 
rather more magnificent than we now usually asso- 
ciate with Quakers, for he speaks of riding in his 
coach and four to visit the king. There were, how- 
ever, other instances of this luxury among Quakers, 
especially in Pennsylvania, where at the time of the 
Revolution of 1776 John Dickinson is described as 
riding in a coach and four. 

Narcissus Luttrell, in his diary for December 5, 
1693, speaks of Penn's acquittal by King William 
rather more bluntly than Penn himself describes it. 

" Wm. Penn, the Quaker, having for some time absconded, and 
having compromised the matters against him, appears now in public, 
and on Friday last held forth at the Bull and Mouth in St. Martin's." 
(Vol. iii. p. 237.) 

After having assailed Penn through two volumes of 
his history, Macaulay at this point fires his last shot. 

" The return which he made for the lenity with which he had been 
treated does not much raise his character. Scarcely had he again 
begun to harrangue in public about the unlawfulness of war, when he 
sent a message earnestly exhorting James to make an immediate 
descent on England with thirty thousand men." 

The message here referred to was contained in 
a document sent to James and professing to inform 
him what some of his prominent adherents in Eng- 
land thought of his chances of getting back his 
crown. 

330 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

" Mr. Penn says that your Majesty has had several occasions, but 
never any so' favorable as the present ; and he hopes that your Maj- 
esty will be earnest with the most Christian king not to neglect it : that 
a descent with thirty thousand men will not only re-establish your 
Majesty, but according to all appearance break the league." (Mac- 
pherson's " Original Papers," vol. i. p. 468.) 

This is the language of a Roman Catholic, not of 
a Quaker ; for Penn is represented as calling Louis 
XIV. the most Christian king, and he urges James to 
join with that king in a descent on England which 
will not only restore him to the throne, but break up 
the Protestant league which William was maintaining 
by arms against France. If Penn really used such 
language as this, it is not surprising that they sus- 
pected him of being a Jesuit. 

But it is difficult to believe that he said anything 
so inconsistent with the other expressions of his 
opinion which we have. He has told us, in passages 
which we have already quoted, that he had more 
hope for religious liberty under James than under 
William. He unquestionably would have liked to 
see James again on the throne. But I must confess 
I am not prepared to hear him urge a French inva- 
sion of England to accomplish this purpose. 

It is still more difficult to believe that he ex- 
pressed it in the language reported. The report, 
it should be remembered, is made by a Roman 
Catholic, who does not apparently pretend to give 
Penn's words, but only the substance of what he 
said. The man who made this report was one 
Williamson, who was regularly employed to bring 
information from England. In the letter in which 
he gives Penn's opinion will be found his reports of 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

what about a dozen other friends of James thought 
on the subject of his return, and all these reports 
are expressed in the same conventional form, and 
they all speak of the thirty thousand men that are 
to descend on England. 

There is no evidence that Williamson spoke di- 
rectly with Penn in order to obtain his opinion. He 
may have heard in a roundabout way something 
which he chose to consider as Penn's opinion. Peo- 
ple may have told him what they understood Penn's 
opinion to be, and Williamson may have entered it 
as a make-weight in his reports. As evidence, his 
report seems to me very weak. It seems all the 
weaker when we find that twenty years later, in De- 
cember, 1 71 3, another information collector named 
Plunket reports Penn as one of those who could be 
relied on by the pretender to the English throne. 
Plunket could not possibly have communicated with 
Penn; for in December, 171 3, he had been out of 
his mind for a year and a half* 

But we need concern ourselves no further with 
these reports, for the English government never 
again interfered with Penn, and we shall hear no 
more of his relations with William III. During those 
three years of hiding, he had employed his leisure in 
writing several pamphlets, most of them defences of 
Quaker doctrine, such as " The New Athenians no 
Noble Bereans" and "A Key to the Quaker Re- 
ligion." During that time, also, he wrote his collec- 
tion of maxims called " Fruits of Solitude." But 

* Clarkson's Penn, vol. ii. p. 290. 
332 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

the most interesting pamphlet he wrote during his 
concealment was "An Essay towards the Present 
Peace of Europe." In this he advocated what has 
ever since been agitating the minds of philanthropists 
and public men, — a system of arbitration or general 
government to settle all the disputes of the European 
nations and prevent war. He proposed to have a 
United States of Europe, with a diet or general 
council, to which each state should send its repre- 
sentatives ; and he even went so far as to suggest 
the number each nation should send. 

Here we have Penn at his best in the midst of his 
worst. While in punishment and hiding for uphold- 
ing a narrow-minded and stupid despot, he advocates 
a broad and generous principle which that despot 
could never have comprehended. The remarkable 
part of Penn's mind was the ready and courageous 
way in which he conceived and advocated liberal 
ideas far in advance of his time ; and yet this faculty 
could not save him from the delusion of following 
James II. and wasting the best years of his life in 
attempting to introduce liberty into England by the 
assistance of a man who hated liberty with all his 
heart. 

Penn's wife Guli, who, as a pretty young girl, 
appeared in this narrative when she married, twenty 
odd years ago, was now a woman of middle age. It 
is said that she had gone every year to France since 
James was dethroned, carrying to him and his queen 
the little presents and tokens of devotion which his 
adherents in England were fond of sending. It is 
said, also, that she was always affectionately received, 
333 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

although she declared that the revolution was indis- 
pensable, and that she came only for the sake of 
friendship and gratitude.* 

At the time Penn obtained his freedom from Wil- 
liam she had been for some time in very ill health, 
and about three months afterwards, February 23, 
169I, she died. He has left a touching description 
of her death, too long to quote in full. 

" She would not suffer me to neglect any public meeting after I 
had my liberty, upon her account, saying often, ' Oh, go, my dearest; 
do not hinder any good for me. I desire thee go ; I have cast my 
care upon the Lord : I shall see thee again." 

The man who was now known in the world as the 
Great Quaker, Proprietor and Governor of his Maj- 
esty's Colony of Pennsylvania, was in a very sad 
plight, — his wife dead, his influence as a courtier 
worse than lost, his property wasted, and his high- 
sounding province a source of cruel expense to him. 
He wanted to go at once to that province, but was 
faced by the humiliating condition that he could not 
scrape together enough money to take him there. He 
wrote a pathetic letter to his friends in the province, 
describing his losses, and asked that a hundred of 
the colonists should each lend him a hundrec ^^Lounds 
for four years free of interest, and after four years 
with interest ; his own bond to be given as security. 
I am sorry to be obliged to relate that there was not 
the slightest notice taken in Pennsylvania of this 
very reasonable request. Penn had said that if they 
would not lend him the whole ;^i 0,000 which he 

* Strickland's Queens of England, Mary Beatrice. 
334 



SUSPICIONS, CONSPIRACIES, AND HIDING 

asked for, he would be satisfied if they would lend 
him as much as they could. But they never lent 
him a penny. 

It may be said here, in partial explanation of this 
conduct, that Penn was not then popular in Penn- 
sylvania. His attempt to govern the colony at a 
distance of three thousand miles through the dis- 
turbed reign of James II. and the years that fol- 
lowed the revolution had been a failure. He had 
also lost caste among the Quakers. Many of them 
were in favor of King William rather than James, 
and Penn had now for many years been deep in 
politics and a courtier's occupations, which was all 
inconsistent with the practice and principles of his 
people. They could excuse a great deal for the 
sake of his distinguished position and the good he 
had been able to do them, but he had gone entirely 
too far. There is no doubt that at this time they 
regarded him with coldness. 

This I know has been vehemently denied by some 
who deny everything that does not tend to manufac- 
ture Penn into a saint. Clarkson, however, admits 
in the fullest manner that Penn had been deserted 
by a large number of his people, which, added to 
the detestation in which he was held by the fol- 
lowers of William, made him, almost an outcast of 
society. Clarkson implies that the Quaker disap- 
proval of him was only because " he had meddled 
more with politics or with the concerns of govern- 
ment than became a member of their Christian 
body." But the disapproval was for more than this. 
It was for the part he had taken in the revolution. 
335 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Thomas Lower, a prominent Quaker, prepared a 
paper for Penn to sign, in the hope of bringing 
about a reconcihation. In this he was to be made 
to say, — 

" And if in any things during these late revolutions I have con- 
cerned myself either by words or writings (in love pity or good will 
to any in distress) further than consisted with Truth's honor or the 
Church's peace, I am sorry for it ; and the government having passed 
it by I desire it may be by you also, that so we may be all kept and 
preserved in the holy tie." (Clarkson, vol. ii. p. 75; Stoughton, 
p. 270.) 

In other words. Lower, as representing the Qua- 
kers, beheved that Penn had gone wrong in the rev- 
olution ; that the government had pardoned him for 
it, and that he ought to ask pardon from the Qua- 
kers. He must apologize for having assisted "in 
love pity or good will" King James "in distress." 
He would never have been asked to sign such a 
strong statement as that unless the Quakers thought 
that there was a great deal to be forgiven. He, 
however, had always insisted that he was right, and 
of course refused to sign it. 

A year or two afterwards, in the summer of 1694, 
there was, according to Clarkson, a complete recon- 
ciliation. He is obliged, however, to admit that 
"how this was effected is not known ;" * and from 
subsequent events it seems likely that the recon- 
ciliation was not entirely complete. 

* Vol. ii. p. 105. 



336 



XX 

RETURNS TO HIS OLD WAY OF LIFE 

Though apparently anxious to return to Pennsyl- 
vania, Penn was unable to set out for six years, and 
I suppose for the reason that he had no money, and 
must stay in England to restore as far as possible 
his estates. In August, 1694, King William returned 
to him the goverment of his province. It had been 
taken from him, it seems, principally as a war meas- 
ure ; for a colony in the hands of a Quaker Jacobite 
might, too, easily become a prey to France. 

During those six years that he remained in Eng- 
land, having ceased to be a courtier, he returned to 
his old life of preaching, and travelled for this pur- 
pose over England and Ireland. The meetings of 
his people and his own preaching were conducted 
under the Toleration Act of his enemy William III. 
By that act the Quakers obtained for their meetings 
a formal license, which was always granted, as a mat- 
ter of course, and that license once obtained, no 
magistrates, constables, or soldiers could interfere 
with them. Persecution was ended forever, and 
Penn never again wrote on his old topic of religious 
liberty. But it v/ould probably have been impossi- 
ble to get him to admit that he owed this happy con- 
dition to William III. So far as we know, he never 
337 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

announced any alteration of his old opinion that he 
had faith in King James's word for liberty. 

His preaching journeys seem to have been emi- 
nently successful. Enormous numbers attended the 
meetings. He was now fifty years old, of mature 
powers, with considerable experience of the world 
and of all phases of society. The vicissitudes and 
troubles through which he had passed rendered him 
an object of interest to thousands who may not 
have approved of his course in the revolution, and 
may not have been Quakers. 

The great numbers attending the meetings — some- 
times several thousand — would lead us at first to 
suppose that the Quakers were very numerous. 
But from the descriptions of these meetings it is 
evident that many attended out of mere curiosity to 
see a remarkable man and learn something of this 
curious religion which had fought its way to respect- 
ability through such terrible martyrdom. All ranks 
and conditions, and even the clergy of the Estab- 
lished Church, came to listen. At one meeting in 
Ireland the bishop sent the mayor to disperse the 
people. Penn treated the mayor with great respect, 
and persuaded him to retire until the meeting was 
over, when he promised to call on the bishop. 
Upon Penn's remonstrating with the bishop, he said, 
" that he went that morning to church to perform 
his office as usual, and when there he had nobody 
to preach to but the mayor, church wardens, some 
of the constables, and the walls." He had, there- 
fore, decided to disperse the great Quaker meeting 
in the hope of obtaining an auditory for himself. 
338 




ALLOWHU.L. I'KNN'.S SF.COND Wll 



RETURNS TO HIS OLD WAY OF LIFE 

In the spring of 1696, three years after the death 
of his first wife, Penn married Hannah Callovvhill, 
of Bristol, and to her and to her children Pennsyl- 
vania descended, and not to Guli's offspring. Guli 
had had seven children, three of whom survived 
her, — Springett, William, and Letitia. But about 
five weeks after this second marriage Springett 
died. 

He was a very religious young man, and his father 
wrote a long account of his death. It is very touch- 
ing and tender, and an interesting revelation of the 
workings of the Quaker mind falling back upon 
itself and communing by the inward way with God. 
But there are some who will always resent a father's 
making in this way an exhibition of his son's death, 
even though it be for edification. His description 
of the last days of Guli also went rather far in this 
direction. 

Of the two remaining children, William became 
a rake and Letitia married William Aubrey, who 
became a very disagreeable son-in-law to Penn. So 
Guli, who as a girl was so charming and married 
Penn with such romantic affection, passes out of his 
Hfe leaving sad mementoes. 

The next year, 1697, Penn left Worminghurst, 
which had been Guli's inheritance from her family, 
and took up his residence in Bristol, where his new 
wife belonged. Thus he started a fresh page in his 
domestic Hfe, but continued his old habit of preach- 
ing and writing. By his second wife he had six 
children, — John, Thomas, Hannah, Margaret, Rich- 
ard, and Dennis. Four of them — John, Thomas, 
339 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Margaret, and Richard — survived her and became 
the proprietors of Pennsylvania. 

Peter the Great of Russia was then a youth hving 
incognito in England and working in the ship-yards 
to inform his barbaric mind about that curious thing 
civilization, which he had heard would make a nation 
powerful. He thought it might accomplish some- 
thing in his own frozen deserts. The Quakers, 
especially Penn, sought him out. He was rather 
unpromising material for a proselyte, and asked of 
what earthly use to a nation a people could be who 
would not fight. But Penn talked to him in Ger- 
man and gave him German Quaker books, with the 
result, it is said, that he always retained a great 
respect for the Quakers, and once in Denmark 
attended one of their meetings. 

We also find Penn back at his old work of writing 
pamphlets on Quaker doctrine, and indulging oc- 
casionally in controversy with opponents of his faith. 
He disapproved of controversy as too disturbing to 
the peace of the church ; but in practice he could 
seldom resist the temptation to fight a round or two 
in the ecclesiastical prize-ring. He loved it just as 
he loved politics ; but I suppose wild horses could 
not have dragged from him an admission of such a 
worldly passion. 

At this time we find him proposing to the Lords 
of Trade a plan of union or general government for 
the colonies in America, which is quite remarkable 
because it foreshadows some of the provisions of 
our national constitution. It is pleasant to find 
Penn once more himself after having been so long 
340 




■KNN's son TIIUMAS 



RETURNS TO HIS OLD WAY OF LIFE 

obscured in Jacobitism ; and his mind was always at 
its best in proposing improvements far in advance 
of his time. He wanted a general government for 
the colonies, so as to make customs duties the same 
in all, regulate commerce and military quotas, and 
return absconding debtors. In other words, he was 
the first to call public attention to these difficulties, 
and he suggested the remedy which within a hun- 
dred years was carried into effect by the American 
people.* 

At the Yearly Meeting of Quakers in London in 
1697 there was a violent attack on his character, 
which shows that the reconciliation which Clarkson 
speaks of was by no means complete. But he could 
easily afford to disregard such things, for his hold 
on the people and his power as a preacher were 
strong, and there had been abundant manifestations 
of this in his recent journeys through England and 
Ireland. His words and presence seem to have been 
very efficacious in arousing in a meeting that pe- 
culiar state of mind, half serene, half exulting, which 
was the foundation of Quaker feeling. 

He probably did his best preaching at this period, 
and his farewell sermon before sailing to Pennsylva- 
nia has been preserved, the only one of his sermons, 
so far as I can discover, that was taken down and 
kept for posterity. Quaker sermons are not of a 
sort to be admired in other religious bodies, and 
scarcely any of them are preserved, because their 
preservation might encourage vanity in the preacher. 

* See The Evolution of the Constitution, p. 223. 
341 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

This sermon of Penn's reads like a good but not a 
remarkable one, and seems to have a more modern 
tone than we should have expected. 

We have a slight glimpse of his life and methods 
at this time in an account of his going to bid fare- 
well to Thomas Story, who was about to sail for 
America. Penn, with other friends of Story, went on 
board the ship, and Penn, " after they had sat to- 
gether in solemn silence, appeared in supplication 
for the well-being and preservation of all present, in 
reverent thankfulness for all the favors of God, and 
e.specially for the precious enjoyment of his divine 
presence which they then experienced." He cer- 
tainly was a many-sided man, this Quaker courtier 
and politician. 

In such occupations the six years passed away, 
and in September, 1699, he at last sailed for Penn- 
sylvania. In a farewell letter to the people of his 
faith, after describing his love for them, which, he 
says, was like David's and Jonathan's, he refers to 
their disapproval of his conduct in the revolution. 

" And suffer me to say, that, to my power, I have from the first 
endeavored to serve you (and my poor countiy), and that at my own 
charges with an upright mind, however misunderstood and treated 
by some whom I heartily forgive." 



XXI 

PENNSYLVANIA AGAIN 

Fifteen years had elapsed since Penn's former 
visit to his province ; and in that time how much 
had happened ! In Great Britain a dynasty had been 
overthrown and a new England begun under im- 
proved ideas of liberty. Political government was 
returning more and more to the ancient Anglo- 
Saxon freedom, and England was starting out on an 
enlarged career of commercial success just as Penn 
had prophesied it would under the beneficent in- 
fluences of religious liberty. In Pennsylvania the 
people had grown more numerous ; they numbered 
now well on towards twenty thousand ; but the 
province had given Penn as much trouble as old 
England and her revolution. 

That while three thousand miles away and in- 
volved in a courtier's occupations, and after that 
hunted up and down as a conspirator, he should 
govern Pennsylvania well was not to be expected. 
He seems to have done well enough when he lived 
in the province, and very badly when away from it. 
There must have been something in his manner, 
some atractiveness of personality which gave him 
his best success when face to face with people. 
When he was directing men and measures from 
a distance he appears unreasonable, weak, inju- 
343 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

dicious, censorious, and even illiberal. But when 
face to face with the same individuals he had no 
difficulties. It may have been a knowledge of this 
quality that when he was suspected of plots and 
conspiracies led him to insist so persistently on a 
personal interview with William III. He seems to 
have had perfect confidence that if he could once 
stand in sight of the king he could settle everything 
with him. 

When he returned to England in the summer of 
1684 he had delegated his power as governor of the 
province to the Provincial Council, which consisted 
of eighteen members, so that there were in effect 
eighteen governors. The Assembly of the people 
were very jealous of this Provincial Council, and re- 
sisted them at every opportunity. As the Assembly 
were not allowed to originate laws, they made up for 
their lack of power by rejecting, on the slightest 
pretext, those originated by the Council. They 
would pass no laws at all except on condition that 
they should be in force only one year. At the end 
of the year, unless the Council yielded to their 
wishes, they would refuse to renew the laws, which 
was, in effect, to leave the colony without any laws 
at all. They produced a dead-lock several times in 
this way, to the great annoyance of Penn. In the 
hope of checking their wrangling, he altered the 
arrangement, and, instead of having eighteen gov- 
ernors, reduced the number to five, whom he called 
commissioners. 

To these commissioners he sent a letter of in- 
structions, telling them to rule the colony with a 

344 



PENNSYLVANIA AGAIN 

high hand. They had, he said, the power to enact, 
annul, or vary laws as if he himself were present. 
This was an extraordinary piece of news ; for no- 
body had supposed that Penn himself had any such 
power. He certainly was not entitled to it under 
the charter which gave him the right to make laws 
only with the consent of the freemen or their dele- 
gates. If he could not make laws without the con- 
sent of the freemen, it was reasonable to suppose 
that he could not annul them without their consent. 

But he went on in his instructions like an Eastern 
despot, ordering the commissioners to keep the Pro- 
vincial Council to its duty. If that body, he said, 
continued its slothful and dishonorable methods, he 
would dissolve the whole frame of governm-ent ; and 
the power to dissolve it he appeared to think rested 
entirely with himself As a foretaste of what he 
could do, he told the commissioners that at the next 
meeting of the Assembly they were to announce that 
all the laws except the constitution itself were abro- 
gated. They were then to dismiss the Assembly, 
and, having called it again, pass such of the laws 
afresh as seemed proper. 

This strange outbreak is explained when we look 
at its date and find that it was in the year 1686, 
soon after James II. had ascended the throne and 
Penn had become one of his courtiers and a sup- 
porter of his policy. Penn must needs assert the 
same power that his royal master professed to have, 
— the right to suspend laws at his pleasure. 

Such an assumption of power over his colony 
would have created a great commotion among the 
345 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

people, if it had become known. But fortunately 
for him the commissioners kept his instructions 
secret, wisely forebore to act upon them, and went 
on governing in the usual way. 

The province was giving him trouble enough 
without the outbreak and rebellion which his in- 
structions might have caused. The commissioners 
had hardly been in office a year before he again 
changed the form of government, and in place of 
the commissioners appointed a single deputy gov- 
ernor. Captain John Blackwell, an old Cromwellian 
soldier. But the Quakers resented the appointment 
of a professional soldier, a soldier, too, who was all 
the more disliked for being a Puritan from New 
England. They made it so hot for him that he 
asked to be relieved from his ludicrous position. So 
this experiment also failed after being tried only a 
year. 

Then he went back again to the plan of having 
the whole Provincial Council act as governor. But 
in 1692 this was changed, and he tried a single 
deputy governor again. In the ten years since the 
foundation of the colony the government had been 
changed six times ; and in a few months there was 
another change, when William IIL took possession 
of Pennsylvania and appointed over it a military 
governor, or captain-general, as he was called, — 
Colonel Benjamin Fletcher. 

This Fletcher had also a stormy time in ruling the 

province. But Penn was deprived of Pennsylvania 

only a year and ten months from October 20, 1692, 

to August 20, 1694. When he received it back 

346 



PENNSYLVANIA AGAIN 

again, he appointed his cousin, Markham, to be 
deputy governor, but gave him two assistants whose 
advice he was compelled to accept, so that in effect 
there were three deputy governors. Markham, how- 
ever, managed to get on after a fashion, and held his 
post for five years, rather longer than any of the 
other experiments. He remained, in fact, until Penn 
arrived in 1699. The people secured from Mark- 
ham many liberties, and the Assembly secured for 
itself the privilege of originating legislation which 
Penn had confined to the Council. 

These difficulties and constant changes in the gov- 
ernment seem to show very injudicious management. 
But the worst part of the business was that instead 
of bringing him in large returns from quit-rents, the 
province was involving him deeper and deeper in 
debt. He had been bearing the expense of the 
government, paying salaries, and spending money on 
his country place at Pennsbury, all in a generous 
spirit to push on the fortunes of the colony and give 
it prosperity and success. His bungling arrange- 
ments with the government were also well meant. 
But in all there is a total lack of skilful and busi- 
ness-like method. 

However, he was now on the sea bound for his 
colony to govern it in person. He had his family 
with him, and there is every indication that he in- 
tended to spend a long time in Pennsylvania if not 
end his days there. The voyage was a very long one 
of over three months. But at last the ship entered 
the Delaware towards the end of November, about a 
month later than he had arrived on his previous 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

visit. She was evidently very slow in working her 
way up the river ; for on the 30th, at New Castle, 
Penn took to a small boat and was rowed to Chester, 
the same place where he had landed when he first 
came out to the colony. 

It had become known along the river that the 
great proprietor and governor had arrived, and 
Thomas Story hastened from New Castle to meet 
him at Chester. This was the distinguished Quaker, 
to whom, when setting out some time before on his 
travels in America, Penn had bidden farewell. It 
must have been interesting for these two men, who 
had seen and known so much in England, to meet 
suddenly in this little village in the American wil- 
derness. They lodged together at the house of a 
Quaker, Lydia Wade, who lived close to Chester ; 
and Story, no doubt, described to Penn the frightful 
scenes some months before when the yellow fever, 
or Barbadoes distemper, as some called it, had visited 
Philadelphia, killing two hundred and fifteen people 
and frightening the most careless into seriousness. 
But for the most part that evening, as Story tells us 
in his diary, they talked about "matters of govern- 
ment," possibly English affairs, but more hkely the 
troublesome government of Pennsylvania. 

The next day, the ship having caught up to Penn, 
he went with her to Philadelphia. He arrived on 
Sunday, and after distributing six pounds, a large 
sum in those days, as a largess to the crew, he went 
on shore, paid a short visit to his deputy governor, 
Markham, and then attended the Quaker meeting, 
where he preached, no doubt, with much effect ; for 
34S 




JAMKS LOGAN 



PENNSYLVANIA AGAIN 

the occasion must have been to him a very interest- 
ing one. 

He had brought out with him, as his secretary, 
James Logan, who settled in the colony and became 
one of its most prominent and distinguished men. 
He took charge of all Penn's affairs, and on Penn's 
death represented the family in the province for the 
rest of his life. 

On their arrival at Philadelphia, he and Penn, with 
Mrs. Penn and Penn's daughter, Letitia, lived for a 
month at the house of Edward Shippen. After that 
they moved to the slate-roof house, as it was called, 
on the east side of Second street, north of Walnut. 
Penn rented it for two years, and used it for his town 
residence. His son John was born there, always 
known as John the American, and it was after- 
wards used by Logan as an office for the proprie- 
tary business. It should have been preserved as 
a relic, for in later years it had many interesting 
associations. 

A large part of the inhabitants, especially the 
Quakers, seem to have been heartily glad to have 
Penn with them again. The party opposed to him 
was small, and was led by a certain Colonel Quarry, 
who represented the British government in the colony 
as judge of the admiralty, to see that the revenue 
laws were enforced ; and he was also the leader of 
the Church of England people. He had bitterly op- 
posed Penn before his arrival, and after Penn re- 
turned to England he opposed him again. But 
while Penn was in the province that faculty he had 
for dealing with people face to face seems to have 
349 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

quieted all animosities. Almost as soon as he ar- 
rived he sent for Quarry, and they talked over their 
differences frankly and with good results. 

In truth, Penn, being now on the ground, could 
remedy the matters of which Quarry had been com- 
plaining to the British government. One of these 
■was piracy ; and the home government had inti- 
mated rather strongly to Penn that unless he sup- 
pressed piracy in the neighborhood of his province 
he might forfeit his charter. I have elsewhere de- 
scribed the extraordinary prevalence of piracy in 
those times, and how prominent people and even 
colonial governors were interested in its profits.* 
Without going further into details, I may say here 
that some of the pirates were living comfortably in 
Philadelphia, and one of them, James Brown, had 
married Governor Markham's daughter. 

Penn went to work on them with a strong hand, 
pursuing and arresting in a way which they probably 
did not expect from a Quaker preacher. But the 
Quakers were very active, energetic people in those 
days ; and the best governor they ever had in the 
Carolinas in colonial times was a Quaker. In deal- 
ing with the son-in-law of his deputy governor Penn 
had a delicate matter on his hands, and the letter is 
still extant in which, in his very kindly way, he re- 
quires the deputy to be security for his precious son- 
in-law's appearance.f 

He was busy enough with this and other matters, 

* Men, Women, and Manners in Colonial Times, vol. ii. pp. 274- 
286. 

f Buck's Penn in America, p. 238. 
350 



PENNSYLVANIA AGAIN 

surveying a manor of ten thousand acres at Rock- 
hill, in Bucks County, for his new-born son, John 
the American ; preaching at Quaker meetings in 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey ; holding meetings 
of the Council and Assembly ; attempting to have 
laws passed to regulate marriages among the negro 
slaves, and to break up the promiscuous concubinage 
among them, and also arranging for religious meet- 
ings among them and the Indians. Although very 
advanced in his ideas, he had not reached the point 
of opposing negro slavery, and he was himself a 
slaveholder. 

He established the plan of having a night-watch- 
man in Philadelphia, who should traverse the town at 
regular hours, announcing the time, describing the 
weather, and anything remarkable that had hap- 
pened. This custom continued until long after the 
Revolution. Penn also urged upon the people the 
importance of carrying more effectually into prac 
tice the Quaker reform of making prisons work- 
houses and reformatories ; and in after years the 
Pennsylvania system of prison discipline became the 
model for the rest of the country. 

During his absence in England there had been so 
many changes in the constitution that its validity 
was in question. Markham had, without the ap- 
proval of Penn, allowed the Assembly the right to 
originate laws and adjourn as they pleased. By 
these changes, made without his consent, Penn 
thought that the whole constitution had gone into 
abeyance, and could be revived only by writ He 
had already acted on this idea, and had summoned 
351 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

the Assembly by his own writ, as if it had not power 
to meet of itself This was somewhat high-handed, 
but the people acquiesced in it, and as Penn, though 
fond of such assertions of power, never used them 
to oppress the colonists, it is difficult to find fault 
with him. To settle all doubts, he told them, in his 
broad, liberal way, to prepare a new constitution, 
and put in it anything they wanted. Meantime, 
they formally surrendered to him the old one, which 
shows that their confidence in him was by no means 
slight. 

He was enjoying himself at his country-seat, 
Pennsbury, where he went to live in spring. It 
was twenty miles up the river, and there his chief 
interests were centred during the rest of his visit. 
The upper river was less interesting than the wide 
reaches and vast overflowed meadows below Phila- 
delphia, with which he had become familiar on his 
first visit. But he soon surrounded himself with 
amusements at Pennsbury. He was fond of nature 
and a country life, and knew how to create a world 
of his own in the woods. 

The building of the mansion house had been 
started during his first visit, and it is said to have 
cost jC^ooo, which was certainly an extravagant sum 
to spend on a house in the wilderness. It was 
backed by vast forests, through which only a few 
roads and trails had been cut. We find Penn send- 
ing down to Philadelphia for a compass to guide 
him in his rides on horseback ; and the large creeks 
not having been bridged, he could not drive in a 
wagon to Philadelphia. 

352 



PENNSYLVANIA AGAIN 

He communicated with the town almost ex- 
clusively by boat. He had a fine barge, with six 
oarsmen ; and he seems to have been very fond of 
these journeys by water. Of the barge itself he 
was particularly careful. "But above all dead 
things," he writes to his steward at Pennsbury, " my 
barge, I hope nobody uses it on any account, and 
that she is kept in a dry-dock, or at least covered 
from the weather." In this barge he was rowed to 
Philadelphia to attend the meetings of the Provin- 
cial Council ; and if indisposed he would send the 
barge to bring the members of the Council to Penns- 
bury. 

The house was built of brick, two stories and a 
half high and sixty feet in front, facing the river. 
There was a very large hall on the first floor, ex- 
tending, it is supposed, the whole length of the 
house, and this was for meetings of the Council and 
for entertainments of all sorts, especially for the 
Indian chiefs who often came to see him. A small 
hall and three parlors are said to have communicated 
with this large room. The kitchen was in a separate 
building at the side, as was common at many of the 
country houses built in Pennsylvania in colonial 
times. There was also a brew-house, a laundry, and 
a stable for twelve horses ; and all these out-build- 
ings were on a line with the main house facing the 
river. 

From the house to the river the ground was ter- 
raced, and an avenue of poplars shaded the path to 
the water. Gardens and a well-laid lawn extended 
all round the house, and vistas were cut through the 
23 353 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

neighboring forest-trees to give views up and down 
the river. Penn sent out from England walnut- 
trees, hawthorns, hazels, and a great quantity of 
fruit-trees, and all sorts of seeds and roots. He had 
trees and shrubs brought from Maryland to experi- 
ment in their culture ; and had the native wild flow- 
ers transplanted into his gardens. 

The house was well furnished with the pewter, sil- 
ver, and chinaware used at that time, handsome oak 
and walnut chairs and tables, satin curtains, a good 
supply of sherry, madeira, canary, and claret in 
the cellar, and six large vessels called cisterns for 
holding water or beer, which were probably used in 
entertaining the Indians. He once, it is said, gave 
the chiefs a grand feast at a table spread for them in 
the avenue, and provided a hundred turkeys, besides 
venison. 

He appears to have had a coach, a calash, and a 
sedan chair. The coach and calash may have been 
used at Pennsbuiy, but the chair was probably used 
only in the town. Most of his travelling was done 
on horseback, and his wife and daughter appear to 
have amused themselves in this way, for three side- 
saddles and two pillions are enumerated among the 
articles at Pennsbury. He was rather fond of good 
horses, and brought with him from England on this 
visit a fine colt called Tamerlane, sired, it is sup- 
posed, by the famous British stallion Godolphin. It 
has also been inferred that Penn used a shot-gun at 
Pennsbury, for in his cash-book there is an entry, 
"repair of the governor's gun." 

He seems to have wandered on horseback all over 
354 



PENNSYLVANIA AGAIN 

the country for a circuit of thirty or forty miles 
round Philadelphia ; and we can be quite sure that 
all the prominent places we now know so well were 
carefully examined by him when there was nothing 
much to be seen but forest-trees or an Indian clear- 
ing. Many of these excursions were taken for the 
purpose of looking at manors or tracts which his 
surveyors were marking out He also made a long 
expedition to the Susquehanna, as he had done on 
his former visit. 

It was on his return from this expedition, as is 
supposed, that he was lost for a time on the hill near 
Valley Forge. He wandered aimlessly until, cross- 
ing Valley Creek and ascending the hill on the south 
of it, he saw the Schuylkill, which gave him his true 
direction. He named the hill which misled him. 
Mount Misery, and the hill from which he saw the 
Schuylkill, Mount Joy, and they are still sometimes 
called by those names. 

A pretty story is told of his riding one day to the 
meeting-house at Haverford, west of Philadelphia, 
and overtaking a little barefooted girl, Rebecca 
Wood, who afterwards told the story, also going to 
the meeting. He took her up behind him on the 
horse, and the two rode on, the little girl with her 
bare legs dangling against the horse's side, and the 
governor with his long coat and knee-breeches. 

Judging from the entries in his cash-book, he gave 
away a considerable sum in charity to all sorts of 
poor people, and even after he returned to England 
he instructed his secretary to continue these gifts. 
He and his family were fond of attending fairs and 
355 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

the Indian dances called canticoes. Numerous 
speeches of Penn to the Indians have come down 
to us, and, like all such speeches, they seem very 
plausible and unanswerable, or, at least, the answers 
of the Indians are not usually reported. The Penn- 
sylvania Germans have, however, preserved an an- 
swer some Indians made to Penn, and it does not 
appear that Penn replied. 

" You ask us to believe in the great Creator and Ruler of heaven 
and earth, and yet you yourself do not believe nor trust Him, for 
you have taken the land unto yourself which we and our friends 
occupied in common. You scheme night and day how you may 
preserve it so that none can take it from you. Yea, you even 
scheme beyond your life and parcel it out between your children, — 
this manor for one child, that manor for another. We believe in 
God the Creator and Ruler of heaven and earth. He maintains 
the sun ; He maintained our fathers for so many, many moons. He 
maintains us, and we believe and are sure that He will also protect 
our children as well as ourselves. And so long as we have this faith 
we trust in Him, and never bequeath a foot of ground." (Sachse's 
" German Pietists in America," p. 150.) 

Besides his Pennsylvania journeys, Penn travelled 
to New Jersey, New York, and Maryland. These 
journeys were partly for the purpose of seeing the 
country and partly in continuance of his old habit 
of visiting the Quakers and preaching at their meet- 
ings. A Quaker meeting at Easton, Maryland, has 
preserved the record of one of these visits in the 
year 1700. 

" We were at a Yearly Meeting at Tredhaven, in Maryland, upon 
the Eastern shore, to which meeting for worship came Wm. Penn, 
Lord and Lady Baltimore, with their retinue ; but it was late when 
they came, and the strength and glory of the heavenly power of the 
Lord was going off from the meeting. The lady was much disap- 
356 



PENNSYLVANIA AGAIN 

pointed, as I understand from Wm. Penn, for she told him she did 
not want to hear him, and such as he, for he was a scholar and a wise 
man, and she did not question but he could preach ; but she wanted 
to hear some of our mechanics preach, as husbandmen, shoemakers, 
and such like rustics, for she thought they could not preach to any 
purpose. Wm. Penn told her ' some of these were rather the best 
preachers we had among us.' " (Buck's " Penn in America," p. 320.) 

In such employments and pleasures he passed 
nearly two years. The full details of his acts as a 
governor, his dealings with the Assembly, and his 
troubles with the three lower counties, as Dela- 
ware was then called, are given in full by some of 
his biographers, and best of all by Janney and by 
Buck. I can touch on these subjects only lightly 
and merely say that he seemed to manage all these 
affairs easily and without the gnawing care and an- 
noyance which they gave him in England. He was 
still paying official salaries and assisting this person 
and that with money ; and he declared that Pennsyl- 
vania now stood him a loss of ^20,000.* The As- 
sembly would do nothing to make this up, and the 
returns from his quit-rents and sales of land were 
very slow. 

Still he seems to have intended to remain in his 
province for an indefinite period. He was enjoying 
to the utmost the wilderness and what he called "a 
country and proprietary hfe." But in the summer 
of 1 70 1 he heard that there was a movement in 
England to turn all the proprietary governments 
into royal colonies under the direct rule of the crown, 
and that a bill for that purpose had been already 



* Janney, p. 438. 
357 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

introduced in Parliament. He felt that he must 
return to check this measure, and he prepared for 
his departure with the greatest regret. He hoped 
to return so soon that he wanted to leave his wife 
and daughter in Pennsylvania ; but they insisted on 
returning with him. 

In a letter to Logan at this time, after saying that 
all he has to dispose of in the world is in the prov- 
ince, he adds, "having no more gains by govern- 
ment to trust to for bread." * This chance sentence 
may possibly throw some light on the vexed ques- 
tion whether he had any position of profit under the 
government of James H. 

At the close of October he w-as ready to sail ; but 
before leaving he agreed with the Assembly on the 
new constitution he had promised them. It was a 
more simple document than those which had pre- 
ceded it. There was no provincial council, or double 
house of legislature, but merely a governor to be 
appointed by him, and an assembly elected by the 
people ; and this assembly had the right to choose 
its own speaker and other officers, originate laws, 
and could adjourn when it pleased. It was a very 
liberal government ; for in many of the colonies the 
adjournment of the assembly was in control of the 
governor, who by that means could worry them into 
passing the laws he wanted. 

The constitution abolished the provincial council, 
which had been a legislative body elected by the 
people like the assembly ; and apparently there was 



*• Janney, p. 431 
358 



PENNSYLVANIA AGAIN 

not even to be a governor's council ; but Penn and 
his heirs after him always appointed a body of this 
sort to assist the governor ; the people in vain pro- 
testing that it was unconstitutional. The constitu- 
tion, as a whole, proved to be an excellent one, and 
the Pennsylvanians lived under it for seventy-five 
years, down to the outbreak of the Revolution, a 
longer period than they have lived under any of 
their subsequent frames of government. 



XXII 

A COURTIER AGAIN, AND AGAIN IN PRISON 

When Penn sailed away from his province, at the 
close of October, 1701, he thought he could quickly 
dispose of the measure in Parliament against the 
proprietary colonies, and would soon enjoy Penns- 
bury again. But he became absorbed in other things, 
and he never again returned to Pennsylvania. 

He had a quick voyage of only a month, instead 
of the three months of his outward passage. But as 
soon as he arrived we find Pennsylvania becoming a 
torment to him, instead of the great pleasure it 
always seems to have been when he lived in it. His 
expenses were no doubt greater in England, which 
made his steady losses by the province more appar- 
ent But a greater loss was to find that during the 
two years of his absence his son William had got 
into very evil ways of dissipation. This young man 
was the last of Guli's children, — bright and accom- 
plished in a way, but he had been keeping "top 
company," as his father called it. He was married 
and had a family of children, but that seems to have 
been no restraint upon him. 

In great bitterness of spirit, Penn ever after 

blamed this loss on Pennsylvania : for if he had not 

been absent there for two years, he thought he could 

have saved his son. As time passed and the young 

360 



A COURTIER AGAIN, AND AGAIN IN PRISON 

man's cQiidition became more and more irreclaim- 
able, Penn became all the more convinced that if it 
had not been for those two years of separation he 
could have stopped the evil habits before they be- 
came so firmly fixed. 

The best thing to do, he thought, was to send him 
out to the province, where there was very little "top 
company," where he could live at Pennsbury and 
enjoy the simple pleasures of the woods. He had, it 
seems, contracted heavy debts in England, and his 
creditors were beginning to press, which in those 
days meant imprisonment. Penn evidently hoped 
to reclaim his son by indulging part of his love of 
pleasure. He was to have hounds for hunting foxes, 
deer, and wolves, to be taken on fishing excursions, 
little journeys to see the Indians, and everything of 
that sort that was wholesome ; and the servants at 
Pennsbury were instructed to take good care of his 
dogs. The young man, in short, was sent to Amer- 
ica with a very expensive outfit, and, in a letter to 
Logan, Penn complains of this as another heavy 
loss. Logan was instructed to look after the way- 
ward youth, get him good acquaintances, encourage 
Penn's old friends to be kind and helpful to him, 
and prevent, if possible, " rambling to New York 
and mongrel correspondence." 

In the spring of 1 702, a few months after Penn's 
return, William III. died, and I cannot find any rec- 
ord of Penn's sorrow on that occasion. Queen Anne 
succeeded to the throne. She was the daughter of 
James, but a Protestant, and married to a Protestant, 
Prince George of Denmark. She continued the Tol- 
361 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

eration Act and the tests, and made no serious 
changes in the general poHcy estabhshed by William. 
But as the daughter of James she seemed to have 
kindly feelings for Penn, and he again became a 
courtier, living at Kensington in London, while his 
wife, for economy's sake, went to live for a time with 
her father. 

In the fourteen years since William IIL came to 
the throne England had greatly changed. The most 
striking change was that violence, cruelty, and brutal 
executions had largely passed away. All things 
were more regular and orderly. The court had be- 
come decent, and ribald conversation and obscenity 
were passing out of fashion. William and Mary were 
virtuous and honorable rulers, and set the example 
which is now the modern requirement in kings. 
The government was settled ; civil war was not 
threatening every month ; bright and independent 
minds were no longer living in banishment, or orna- 
menting the towns with their bleeding heads and 
quarters ; the statesman who failed lost his office 
and not his head. In fact, under the liberty estab- 
lished by William III. the modern world was be- 
ginning to appear. 

Literature was no longer monopolized by drama- 
tists and theologians. Essayists, critics, and satirists 
began to show themselves. Journalism begins in 
this period and becomes recognized as a political 
force. Pope was now thirteen years old and was 
writing his first boyish epic. Swift was about to 
bring forth his "Battle of the Books" and "Tale 
of a Tub," in which he anticipated Carlisle. Addi- 
362 



A COURTIER AGAIN, AND AGAIN IN PRISON 

son and Steele in a few years were writing the Tat- 
Icr and the Spectator. Defoe had already written 
his " Essay on Projects," recommending insurance, 
friendly societies, savings-banks, insane asylums, and 
other modern methods. It was this book which in 
the previous volume of this series we described as 
having had such a profound influence on Franklin. 
In fact, we have now entered the period and the 
tone of thought which produced Franklin and his 
worldly-wise practical philosophy. This change from 
cruelty to philanthropy, from superstition to common 
sense, must have deeply interested Penn ; but he has 
left us no comments. 

His return to court was fortunate, because he 
needed a courtier's influence to stop the measure 
in Parliament for abolishing proprietary colonies. 
But it was a very expensive life, and his financial 
condition grew worse and worse. Before he left 
Pennsylvania the very economical Quaker Assembly 
had voted him ^2000, but that was a mere trifle ; 
and, besides, most of it was very slowly paid, and 
part, it seems, not paid at all.* He must have more, 
as he wrote to Logan, or he was undone. 



" Never had poor man my task, with neither men nor money to 
assist me. I therefore strictly charge thee that thou represent to 
Friends there, that I am distressed for want of supply ; that I am 
forced to borrow money, and add debts to debts, instead of paying 
them off; besides, my uncomfortable distance from my family, and 
the unspeakable fatigue and vexation of following attendance, 
draughts of answer, conferences, council's opinions, hearings, &c., 
with the charge that follows them, guineas melting, four, five, six a 

* Janney, p. 483. 
363 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

week, and sometimes as many in a day. My wife hitherto has been 
maintained by her father. . . . Make return with all speed or I'm 
undone." 

Soon after this the proprietorship of the Jerseys 
was abohshed, and the two colonies of East and 
West Jersey made one under the direct government 
of the crown. This looked as if Pennsylvania might 
go the same way, and Penn had to double his ex- 
ertions. Every one thought that the proprietor 
of such a mighty province must be rich. They 
think, he wrote Logan, " I have brought over the 
whole world with me." This was very inconve- 
nient, "for," says Penn, "many call upon me for 
old scores." He had been evidently heaping up 
debts for a long time, which was a serious injury 
to the reputation of a Quaker, because the sect at- 
tached great importance to solvency, and sometimes 
disowned a member who suffered the misfortune of 
bankruptcy. 

The Church of England party in the province, 
which had long opposed his interests, but had been 
depressed during his residence there, now sprang up 
again, and sent a representative to England to favor 
the taking of the province by the crown. The war 
of the Spanish succession which William IIL had 
started was now raging, to the great destruction of 
British trade. Pennsylvania languished, and the 
colonists had an excuse for paying Penn neither 
quit-rents nor supplies. So he no doubt believed 
more firmly than ever that he had been right in 
supporting James against that William whose evil 
wars were still working such havoc. But furs 
364 



A COURTIER AGAIN, AND AGAIN IN PRISON 

brought a high price in England, and Penn writes 
urgent letters to Logan to buy up and send him 
over as many as possible. So the great Quaker was 
in his distress trying to become a fur dealer ; and if 
Logan had sent him enough peltries, a large part of 
his embarrassment might have been relieved. 

People took the most annoying advantages of 
him. He had given some land to George Fox, who 
in his will left it to the Quakers of Pennsylvania. It 
had never been definitely located, and the thrifty 
Quaker meeting, wishing to have as valuable a gift 
as possible, demanded that it should be laid out in 
the heart of Philadelphia. Penn, I am glad to say, 
resisted this imposition. It seems the Quakers had 
not long before obtained from Governor Markham, 
but without Penn's consent, the land at Second and 
Market Streets which he had intended for his daugh- 
ter. He also about this time discovered that An- 
drew Hamilton, whom he had appointed deputy 
governor of the province, was secretly favoring the 
party in England that wished to abolish the pro- 
prietorship. Yet, Hamilton dying at this time, Penn 
exerted himself to obtain employment for one of his 
sons. 

So great were his difficulties that, as the move- 
ment to abolish the proprietary governments waned, 
he tried to turn the tables by himself proposing to 
sell his government to the crown. A good round 
sum obtained for it would pay his debts, relieve him 
from a world of annoyance and expense, and he 
would still remain the proprietor of the land and 
enjoy the quit-rents. He intended to part with no 
365 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

more than his mere pohtical right to govern. He 
would still, he wrote Logan, be able to come and 
live in the province and love it as much as ever. A 
great many Quakers, he says, were about to migrate 
to Pennsylvania, so that the superiority would be 
preserved. This plan of selling his right to govern 
he kept pressing for the next fifteen years, and came 
very near accomplishing it for a good price. 

His son William finally went out to Pennsylvania 
in company with the new governor, one John Evans, 
a young man of only twenty-six years, to whom 
Penn had taken a fancy and fondly supposed he 
would be a check on his son. The two scamps at 
first, however, gave a very favorable impression. 
Logan was inclined to be hopeful, and others were 
not a little pleased and flattered by the manners 
and elegance of William, whose association with 
" top company" had not been without effect. He 
was taken up to Pennsbury to meet a hundred 
Indians who had come to pay their respects to 
the son of the only white man who could keep 
his word, and everything seemed very favorable. 
Logan took the young man to live with him in 
a large house which then stood at the southwest 
corner of Third and Chestnut Streets. No other 
place, says Logan, could be found suitable for the 
residence of the heir presumptive to the province. 
He was given-a place in the Council and a seat next 
to the governor. 

He succeeded in restraining himself within mod- 
erate bounds for considerably more than a year ; 
but I suppose colonial life became at last too monot- 
366 



A COURTIER AGAIN, AND AGAIN IN PRISON 

onous ; for we find that one night he and his young 
friend, the governor, broke loose entirely, and in 
good old English roystering fashion began to beat 
the watch. They were in a public house at the 
time and quite drunk. Young Penn called for pis- 
tols ; but the lights were put out, and he received a 
good thrashing from Alderman Wilcox, who pre- 
tended he could not recognize him in the darkness, 
and, when he announced himself as the heir pre- 
sumptive, beat him again as a slanderer. 

He was very indignant at this treatment, and also 
at being afterwards treated as a common rioter. The 
Quakers endeavored to deal with him for his mis- 
conduct ; but he resented tiieir attempt, resigned his 
membership, proclaimed himself no longer a Quaker, 
and determined to leave the colony. His father also, 
finding him as expensive as ever and unimproved in 
morals, preferred to have him come home. He 
would, he said, stop his allowance and let him face 
his creditors. He had been given a manor in Penn- 
sylvania, which it was hoped he would look after, 
but he soon sold it for ;^850 to WilHam Trent and 
Isaac Norris. It was a large tract of seven thousand 
acres, and the flourishing borough of Norristown 
now stands upon it. He needed the money for his 
expenses, he said, because his father did not give 
him enough. On reaching England, however, he 
immediately began to sponge again on his father, 
who was not told that he had sold the manor. 

" A melancholy scene enough upon my poor child. Pennsylvania 
began it by my absence here, and there it is accomplished, with ex- 
pense, disappointment, ingratitude, and poverty." (Janney, p. 467.) 
367 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

He now placed his losses by the province at 
;C30,ooo ; a demagogue. David Lloyd, was exciting 
the colonists against him ; and the young man 
Evans was becoming the worst deputy governor he 
had ever had. 

" O Pennsylvania what hast thou cost me ? Above _^30,ooo more 
than I ever got by it, two hazardous and most fatiguing voyages, my 
straits and slavery here, and my child's soul almost. ... In short 
I must sell all or be undone, and disgraced into the bargain." 

The Assembly, under the leadership of Lloyd, 
would not pay tlie deput}' governor his salar>' of 
;^400, which Penn was still compelled to pay. Yet 
Penn was all this time, and, indeed, all his hfe, fight- 
ing off Lord Baltimore's claim, which would have 
made Philadelphia a Mar\-land town, and doing his 
best to protect the colony from interference in Par- 
liament 

He at this time supported Evans against the 
Assembly, who claimed that they had a right under 
the constitution to adjourn as they pleased. Evans 
contended, as his predecessor Hamilton had done, 
that they had a right to adjourn from day to day or 
for short periods within tlie session, but that the 
session could be closed and the Assembl}- finally ad- 
journed only by the governor. Penn supported him 
in this because, as he was negotiating with the crown 
for the sale of his government, he could get a better 
price if the governor retained the same power of 
adjournment that governors in most of the other 
colonies had. The crown would not be likely to 
want to step into the shoes of a weak governor 



A COURTIER AGAIN, AND AGAIN IN PRISON 

among a people who were accustomed to their Hb- 
erties. The Assembly passed a bill confirming in 
themselves the power of adjournment ; but Evans 
refused his assent to it ; and of this bill Penn said, 
"What a bargain should I have made for my gov- 
ernment with the crown after such a bill had taken 
from me the power I should dispose of!"* 

There was not a little resentment among the 
people, and the Assembly passed nine resolutions 
against Penn, which were referred to a committee 
instructed to prepare an address to be sent to him. 
The address, however, was sent without having been 
submitted to the house, and was more vindictively 
expressed than the house would have approved of 
Lloyd seems to have drawn it and sent it without 
authority. 

It charged Penn with having instructed his deputy 
to resist the right of adjournment, of allowing his 
colonists' consciences to be oppressed by oaths 
under royal orders, of suffering their laws to remain 
unconfirmed by the crown, and of extortion and 
corruption in the sale of land. His personal govern- 
ment while in the colony had been one of resent- 
ment and recrimination, and he had taken sides with 
the enemies of the province. The smallest point 
was seized upon and by adroit language magnified 
against him. He was reminded of his neglect to 
pay a former governor's salary, and he was impu- 
dently asked if the province was expected to dis- 
charge it And, finally, he was informed that some- 



* Janney, p. 478. 
369 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

thing must be done to suppress vice, which had 
greatly increased since the arrival of his son. 

This last was an unkind cut ; and to make matters 
worse Lloyd sent the address to some Quakers in 
England who were the remains of the party that 
had been unfriendly to Penn since the revolution. 
They were told to use the address as they thought 
best. 

But Lloyd had overreached himself The address 
was too violent and offensive to be popular among 
the people of the province, and there was a strong 
reaction in favor of Penn, which quite unseated Lloyd 
and his party. The Assembly disapproved of the 
address, and even went so far as to vote i^i200 for 
the support of government. Lloyd was ordered to 
recall the address, which he did, but accompanied 
the recall with a private letter to the bearer instruct- 
ing him not to execute it. 

Affairs went on so smoothly that Penn began to 
hesitate about selling the government to the crown, 
and everything might have continued in this happy 
condition if Evans had not attempted a boy's trick 
for scaring the Quakers. He had been trying to 
organize a militia for the province, and, meeting with 
much difficulty from Quaker principles, he arranged 
a plan for the day of the annual fair in Philadel- 
phia, and had a messenger arrive in great haste 
and terror with the news that the French had en- 
tered the river in force and were moving on the city. 
Buckling on his sword and mounting his horse, he 
rode up and down among the people entreating 
them to arm and defend the province. 
370 



A COURTIER AGAIN, AND AGAIN IN PRISON 

He succeeded in stirring up a slight alarm. The 
large vessels were sailed up the river ; the small 
boats hidden in the creeks ; and silverware and 
valuables thrown into wells. But the farce was soon 
over, and he gained just four militiamen, who came 
to the meeting he had appointed with their weapons. 
For these four he paid the price of ruining his career 
as governor. Popular feeling again turned against 
him, and Lloyd went once more into power. Evans 
tried to secure for Penn the proceeds of tavern 
licenses and fines and forfeitures ; and also the right 
to establish courts of law by proclamation without 
the consent of the Assembly ; but this only made 
matters worse. 

The Assembly now attempted to strike at Penn 
through Logan, and Logan was formally impeached. 
But this failing, they prepared an address to be sent 
to Penn, in which they avoided the mistakes of vio- 
lence and bitterness which Lloyd had made in the 
first one. There was nothing offensive in it ; but 
Penn was reminded that unless the evil practices of 
his deputy governor were remedied the Assembly 
must appeal to the queen. Evans was becoming 
unbearable, and was guilty of gross immoralities 
with the Indians. There were other complaints 
about Penn's failure to have the Quakers relieved 
from administering oaths ; but the main point of the 
address was the disgraceful conduct of Evans. 

Some time before this another burden had been 

laid on Penn's shoulders by the marriage of his 

daughter, Letitia, to' William Aubrey, who was very 

much of a man of business, "a scraping man," Penn 

371 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

called him. He insisted on such prompt payment 
of his daughter's marriage portion, and was so con- 
tinuously persistent about it, that Penn seems to have 
hated him more than he ever hated anybody. 

Then just at the time of the Assembly's address 
about Evans there was a revelation in Penn's busi- 
ness affairs that was most unfortunate. He had had 
for a long time a steward or manager, Philip Ford, 
supposed to be a most exemplary Quaker, who had 
charge of his estates in England and Ireland. He 
was very fond of Ford, as he was of so many peo- 
ple, kings included, and he gave him ten thousand 
acres in Pennsylvania, a city lot in Philadelphia, one 
hundred and fifty acres in the suburbs, and seemed 
to think that he was scarcely giving him enough. 
But Ford had, it seems, other means of enriching 
himself 

He rendered accounts from time to time, which 
Penn, with his careless business habits, received and 
set aside without examination and without even 
opening some of them. Finally, when an investiga- 
tion was made, it appeared that although Ford had 
received ;^ 17,000 of Penn's money and expended 
only ;f^i6,ooo, yet Penn owed him ^10,500. He 
accomplished this remarkable result by charging 
compound interest at eight per cent, every six 
months on all advances, to which he added large 
commissions, charged again and again on the same 
sums, and an enormous salary. He allowed Penn 
no interest on receipts, and sometimes failed to set 
down money received. 

Penn had for years been writing Logan how the 



A COURTIER AGAIN, AND AGAIN IN PRISON 

income from his estates in Great Britain was grow- 
ing less and less, and now it was quite evident how 
the depreciation had occurred. It must have as- 
tonished Penn when Ford first reported to him 
that instead of any income from the estates the 
owner of the estates was in debt to the manager in 
some thousands of pounds. But still Penn made no 
investigation, and his debt to Ford kept rolling up. 
Ford pressed for payment, and Penn, still making 
no investigation, committed the monstrous folly of 
giving Ford a deed in fee simple of the whole prov- 
ince of Pennsylvania as security. Some time after- 
wards he committed another extraordinary piece of 
folly, and accepted from Ford a lease of the prov- 
ince. The lease was of course strong evidence to 
show that the deed was intended to be an absolute 
conveyance ; and yet there is no doubt that Penn 
intended the deed to be only a mortgage. 

It is probable that Ford also regarded it as only a 
mortgage, and during his life time the whole affair 
was kept secret. In fact, Penn seems to have always 
dealt with Ford in a private, confidential manner, and 
without taking advice from any one. During all 
this time it was never generally known that the great 
Quaker, as he was called, the proprietor and gov- 
ernor of her Majesty's colony of Pennsylvania, had 
been juggled out of his province by a book-keeper. 

When Ford died, however, his widow and son 
made everything public ; declared that the deed 
passed an absolute title, and announced themselves 
as the proprietors of Pennsylvania. They treated 
Penn as their tenant, and brought suit against him for 
373 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

;^3000 rent in arrear, and, having obtained a judg- 
ment for that amount, they had Penn arrested and 
imprisoned for debt. They even went so far as to 
attempt to get a proclamation from the crown de- 
claring them to be the proprietors of Pennsylvania, 
and commanding the colonists to obey them. 

When they arrested Penn the officers took him 
while he was at the meeting in Gracechurch Street, 
or, as the Londoners sometimes called it, Gracious 
Street. This must have been a strange and sad re- 
calling of old times, for it was at this same meeting 
that he had been arrested thirty-seven years before 
when a young man for preaching to the Quakers ; 
and it was under this arrest that he had so eloquently 
claimed the rights of a British freeman to a fair trial 
by jury. 

For nine months the Fords kept Penn confined to 
the Fleet prison, and meantime his controversy with 
them was going through the tedious process of a 
chancery suit. His friends, however, were trying 
to effect a compromise. Penn had allowed the 
iniquitous account to run on so long, and had so 
often tacitly confirmed it, that the Fords had a strong 
case against him. But he displayed all his old cour- 
age and serenity in prison, to which he had been well 
seasoned in his youth. He was allowed rather com- 
fortable quarters, and appears to have held small re- 
ligious meetings there, as well as meetings of his 
friends. Isaac Norris, one of the most prominent 
colonists of Pennsylvania, was in London, and did all 
he could for him. He speaks particularly of his 
firmness and good spirits. 

374 




i 


.r- y"' ^ 


mtSSiaKKlKm 





A COURTIER AGAIN, AND AGAIN IN PRISON 

" After all, I think the fable of the palm good in him—' the more 
he is pressed, the more he rises.' He seems of a spirit fit to bear 
and rub through difficulties ; and as thou observes his foundation re- 
mains. I have been at some meetings with him, and have been 
much comforted in them, and particularly last First-day." (Janney, 
p. 501.) 

Before he had been imprisoned his friends were 
making good progress in raising money to enable him 
to settle with the Fords. But just at this point the 
hostile Quakers to whom Lloyd had sent the violent 
memorial came forward and made it public. The very 
serious charges in it staggered many of Penn's ad- 
mirers, and an ill-feeling against him began to spread 
among the Quakers. Fortunately Norris, who was 
in London, had been in the Assembly when Lloyd 
sent the memorial, and he disclosed the truth about 
it. He certified in writing that the memorial as it 
stood had never been passed by the Assembly, nor 
even once read therein. 

The manner of Penn's arrest, seizing him while at 
a religious meeting, began now to work in his favor 
by appealing to the better feelings of his people, 
arousing no doubt their recollections of the old days 
when he had freely gone to prison for their faith. 
The Fords had gone rather too far, for such severe 
treatment of a great man brought him unusual sym- 
pathy and assistance. 

It was a sort of difficulty in which Penn always 
shone at his best, for he knew by long experience 
how to take it. He had, indeed, built up his repu- 
tation and attained the position which gave him 
influence largely by the heroic endurance of im- 
prisonment. At the end of his nine months in the 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

Fleet £7600 was raised, and this the Fords accepted 
as a settlement ; and a mortgage on Pennsylvania to 
secure that sum was given to the friends who had 
furnished the money. 

But before this settlement was made they used 
the recent memorial the Assembly had sent to force 
Penn to dismiss Deputy-Governor Evans. It was 
strange how he clung to this man, in spite of the 
numerous proofs of his bad morals and vile conduct. 
He had written him a most gentle, kindly letter of 
rebuke, exhorting him to a better life. If Penn once 
liked a man, or believed in him, it was almost im- 
possible for him to change his relations with him, 
in spite of the plainest evidence. He would prob- 
ably have kept Evans if those three sturdy Quakers, 
Whitehead, Mead, and Lowther, to whom the As- 
sembly's complaint was sent, had not visited him in 
prison and told him plainly that if he did not dismiss 
Evans they would lay the whole matter before the 
queen. 

Even then he was determined to make it as easy 
for Evans as possible, and he wrote to Logan, — 

" Pray break it to him and that the reason why I chose to change, 
rather than contest with the complaints before the queen in council, 
is, that he may stand the fairer for any employment elsewhere; 
which would be very doubtful if those blemishes were aggravated in 
such a presence." 



376 



XXIII 



The deputy governor Penn sent out in place of 
Evans was Colonel Charles Gookin, and Penn, of 
course, had a great fancy and liking for him, and sent 
a most flattering description of his good qualities to 
the colonists. Penn had presented him to the queen, 
who gave him her hand to kiss and wished him a 
good journey. 

He had his difficulties with the Assembly. They 
objected very seriously to the instruction Penn had 
given him not to approve any law without the con- 
sent of his Council ; for the Council, they said, had 
been given no power or even existence by the con- 
stitution of 1 70 1, and by this instruction of Penn's 
it was given a secret control of legislation. Then 
they began to attack Logan, who they thought had 
entirely too much influence with the deputy governor 
and with Penn, and Logan replied with so many 
taunts on their past conduct and ill-treatment of 
Penn that they ordered his arrest, and he was taken 
on a writ issued by the speaker. 

The governor, however, immediately released him, 
on the ground that the Assembly could not arrest 
any one outside of its own membership, and least of 
all a member of the Council. Logan sailed for Eng- 
land to lay the whole subject before Penn, who en- 
377 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

tirely approved of his conduct. But before Logan 
could return there was another reaction in Penn's 
favor among the people. The Assembly had gone 
too far. The people believed that both the new 
governor and Penn were doing their best, and at the 
next election — in October, 1710 — they returned an 
Assembly every member of which was on Penn's 
side, Lloyd was so discomfited that he went to live 
in Chester, and for the next two years he and his 
anti-proprietary party were seldom heard of 

This change in the feeling of the people, as soon 
as they saw the prospect of a little good government, 
shows that Penn was in reality very popular among 
them, and that if he had governed in person, or 
appointed fairly discreet deputies, there would have 
been no anti-proprietary party and few difficulties. 

Before the election which turned everything in his 
favor took place, Penn wrote a long letter to the 
colonists, addressing them as " My old Friends," and 
dealing with them in a frank and affectionate man- 
ner, which seems to have increased their regard for 
him. He described the pleasure it had been to him 
to watch the early prosperity of the colony, and how 
it had since then been to him a cause of suffering. 

" The many combats I have engaged in, the great pains and in- 
credible expense to your welfare and ease, to the decay of my former 
estate, of which (however some there would represent it) I too sensi- 
bly feel the effects, with the undeserved opposition I have met with 
from thence, sink me into sorrow, that if not supported by a superior 
hand, might have overwhelmed me long ago. And I cannot but 
think it hard measure, that, while that has proved a land of freedom 
and flourishing, it should become to me, by whose means it was prin- 
cipally made a country, the cause of grief, trouble, and poverty." 
378 




I'KNN'S W KIT IN 



THE END 

He rehearses all the forms of government and 
privileges he had given them, discusses their griev- 
ances, and then goes on to tell of some of his own. 

" The attacks on my reputation ; the many indignities put upon me 
in papers sent over hither into the hands of those wlio could not be 
expected to make the most discreet and charitable use of them j the 
secret insinuations against my justice, besides the attempt made upon 
my estate; resolves passed in the Assemblies for turning my quit- 
rents, never sold by me, to the support of government ; my lands 
entered upon without any regular method; my manors invaded 
(under pretence I had not duly surveyed them) and both these by 
persons principally concerned in these attempts against me here ; a 
right to my overplus land unjustly claimed by the possessors of the 
tracts in which they are found ; my private estate continually ex- 
hausting for the support of that government, both here and there, 
and no provision made for it by that country ; to all which I can- 
not but add the violence that has been particularly shown to my 
secretary. ' ' 

They were not an oppressed people, he said. 
The trifles of which they complained showed that 
they were strangers to real oppression. They com- 
plained that official fees were not settled by act of 
Assembly. By all means, let them settle those fees, 
and make them such as to encourage fit persons to 
undertake the offices. They had complained of the 
tavern-licenses, but that matter was now settled. 
They should remember that the eyes of all Europe 
were upon them : that many nations looked to them 
as a land of ease and quiet, wishing in vain for them- 
selves the same blessings. 

" What are the distresses, grievances and oppressions, that the 

papers, sent from thence, so often say you languish under, while 

others have cause to believe you have hitherto lived or might live, the 

happiest of any in the queen's dominions." 

379 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

We find him at this time also writing to Logan 
about the supposed discovery of a silver-mine by a 
Swiss, named Michel, who had been prowling in the 
woods near Conestoga. In his poverty and need, 
Penn's imagination was easily aroused by such a sug- 
gestion. He had been told that the mine had al- 
ready been secretly worked, and that his former 
deputy, Evans, had shared the profits. 

" Pray scrutinize this matter well, and let me hear from thee with 
all the speed thou canst ; for the assurance Michel gives me, makes 
me solicitous to pry into this affair, whence help may arrive to deliver 



But he was soon convinced that there was more 
help to be had in a sale of his government to the 
crown than in any silver-mines on the Susquehanna, 
and he kept on trying to make a bargain. Every- 
thing was becoming easier for him. The settlement 
of the Ford claim had stopped an exhausting drain 
on his resources, and he could now get some returns 
from his English propert>'. The deputy governor got 
on tolerably well with the Assembly. They regu- 
lated official fees, established a judiciary system and 
a systematic revenue system, and the province was 
rapidly settling down into the well-regulated sort of 
commonwealth Penn had always wished to see it 
It is pleasant to be able to think that he enjoyed 
about three years of this quiet and prosperity. 

He had given up his attendance at court, for the 
movement against the proprietary colonies had 
ceased and there was nothing more for him to do 
there for the Quakers. He was now nearly seventy 



THE END 

years old, and seems to have at last abandoned all 
intention of returning to Pennsylvania. But for 
eight or nine years after his return to England, in 
1 70 1, he had clung to the thought of quickly going 
back, and was continually writing Logan that if he 
could only settle his wretched affairs at home, he 
would fly with delight to America. 

Meantime, in spite of the difficulty with the Fords 
and his attendance at court, he had made numerous 
preaching journeys. He had also written somewhat, 
and added a goodly number of maxims to those he 
had prepared when in concealment in the reign of 
William III. In 171 1 he wrote a preface to the 
journal of an old Quaker friend, John Banks, and 
this seems to have been the last time he wrote for 
publication. 

After he ceased to attend court he seems to have 
lived about eight miles from London, near Brentford. 
In 1 7 10, however, when he was sixty-six he found 
his strength declining, and that the air near London 
did not suit him. He moved farther into the country, 
near Ruscombe, where he lived the rest of his life. 
About two years afterwards, while on a visit to 
London, he was taken ill of what he called a fever, 
and his wife called a "lethargic illness," and others 
"a kind of apoplectic fit" or "palsy." It was evi- 
dently what we would now call a stroke of paralysis. 

He seems to have recovered, and was able to at- 
tend to his affairs. He had almost completed the 
sale of his government to the crown. His great 
difficulty was in the conditions on which the sale 
must be made. He wanted money ; but he also 
381 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

had a great reputation to maintain. He would not 
sell his right in a way that would jeopardize the 
principles on which the colony was founded, and its 
civil and religious liberty. It must always remain a 
secure refuge for the Quakers. All this must be 
made sure before he received a shilling ; and he 
was very particular on this point in negotiating with 
the officers of the crown. 

After his first stroke of paralysis he had brought 
the matter to a state that was satisfactory ; a deed 
was ready to be signed, and ^lOOO had been paid 
him on account of the purchase money, which was 
to be ;^ 1 8, 150. This sum, it will be observed, was 
about i^2000 more than the i^ 16,000 due from the 
crown to his father, in liquidation of which Pennsyl- 
vania had been granted. 

But before he could sign the deed he was stricken 
again with paralysis while he was writing to Logan a 
letter which he could not finish, and which proved 
to be the last he ever wrote. He recovered suf- 
ficiently to attempt a little business, but within three 
or four months he was seized again in the same way. 

These three strokes, all within a year, completely 
invalided him, and partially wrecked his mind. He 
had been a much hated and abused man in his life, 
and after his death his enemies circulated the story 
that he had died a raging madman. But there was 
no truth in it. His mind was merely weakened by 
the paralysis. He forgot his cares, and a certain 
serenity, which seemed partly natural and partly the 
r£sult of his religion, remained. 

But the sale could not be completed ; for with his 
382 



mind impaired the deed would not have been vaUd 
if he had signed it. So the government of Pennsyl- 
vania as well as the ownership of the land remained 
with his family until the American Revolution of 
1776. 

In the year 17 13, the year after he was stricken 
and his mind impaired, peace was at last declared, 
and the trade of the Delaware River immediately 
began to revive. This was the event for which he 
had been waiting many years, the event that would 
end the long wars in which his old enemy William 
III. had involved England. He had even hesitated 
in selling his government, expecting that he might 
hear of the cessation of hosdhties at any time. He 
was confident that, as soon as peace came, his re- 
turns from sales of land and quit-rents would greatly 
increase and soon place him beyond any necessity 
of selling. But now the good time had come when 
his mind could no longer appreciate it, and the re- 
sults had hardly time to gather very much headway 
before he had ceased to live. 

His wife had taken charge of all his affairs ; and 
she proved herself an excellent manager. The 
deputy governor was soon in a terrible quarrel with 
the Assembly, and his recall was demanded. Mrs. 
Penn dismissed him and appointed in his stead Sir 
William Keith, who had a prosperous and popular 
administration of ten years. Pennsylvania went to 
her and her children, while the English and Irish 
estates, at that time thought the more valuable, were 
settled on Guli's son William, who seems to have 
continued his dissipations. 
383 



THE TRUE WILLIAM PENN 

In a few years, however, Pennsylvania became 
enormously valuable, and Penn's sons by his second 
wife became very rich men. So Penn's ambition of 
adding to his family fortune as well as establishing a 
refuge for the Quakers was realized at last. But the 
history of the management of the province by his 
sons and their great wealth cannot be given here,* 

Penn's last years were very peaceful. 

" Found him to appearance pretty well in health and cheerful of 
disposition, but defective in memory ; so that, though he could relate 
many past transactions, yet he could not readily recollect the names 
of absent persons, nor could he deliver his words so readily as here- 
tofore ; yet many savory and sensible expressions came from him, 
rendering his company even yet acceptable, and manifesting the re- 
ligious stability of his mind." (Life prefixed to his Works, vol. i. 
p. 150.) 

He continued to decline very slowly and grad- 
ually for about six years. For two or three years 
there was not much change. He received the 
visits of his friends, and on Sundays was driven to 
meeting, where he sometimes spoke a few sentences, 
and on returning home took leave of his friends with 
great tenderness. He enjoyed walking out of doors, 
and when the weather was bad he diverted himself, 
as his wife tells us, from room to room of his large 
house. He took great delight in his children, and 
could scarcely bear to have his wife out of his sight. 
As long as she kept from him the thoughts of his 
business affairs he was happy ; but if his mind was 
turned to his disastrous finances, or the deplorable 

* See Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, pp. 66, 84, 122, 
127, 128, 169, and passim. 

384 




V'S BUKIAl.-l'LACp:, JORDAN'S MEETING-HOUSE 



THE END 

condition of his interests in Pennsylvania, the effect 
was most unfortunate. 

In 1 716 he could no longer remember names, 
but appeared to know who the persons were who 
came to see him. The next year he scarcely knew 
any one, and could no longer walk without leading ; 
and in the following year, 1718, on the 30th of July, 
at the age of seventy-four, he died. 



3^5 



Index 



Affirmation instead of oath, 185. 
Albigenses, 86. 
Amyrault, Moses, loo. 
Antinomians, 82, 84. 
Aubrey, William, 339,371. 

Baltimore, Lord, 236. 
Barclay, Robert, 121, 201, 285. 
Baxter, Penn's controversy with, 

179. 
Bevan, Sylvanus, 16. 
Bishops, the seven, 292. 
BucHAN, Earl of, 274. 
Burnett, Bishop, 28, 260, 271, 

273, 317, 320. 

Callowhill, Hannah, marries 
Penn, 339. 

Charles I., 35, 36. 

Charles II., secret treaty with 
Louis XIX., 166; death of, 
254- 

Chester, name of, given to Up- 
land, 231. 

Civil war, the, 37. 

COBHAM, Lord, 16. 

Cole, Josiah, 198. 

Congregationalists, 33. 

Cornish, 260. 

Corruption in Admiral Penn's 
time, 44. 



Crisp, William, 251, 252. 
Croese, Gerard, 256, 263, 310. 

Dalrymple, 319 321. 
Delaware, State of, 208, 230. 
Delaware, the, scenery of, 231. 
Dyer, Mary, 84. 

Elwood, John, 165. 

England, condition of, in Penns' 
time. III ; coarseness of lan- 
guage and life in, 114, 1x6. 

Evans, Governor, 366, 368,371, 
376. 

Evelyn waylaid by highway- 
men, 112. 

Exclusive salvation, doctrine of, 
80. 

Executions in Penn's time, 117. 

Familists, 82, S3. 
Fifth-Monarchy men, 34. 
Fletcher, Colonel Benjamin, 

346. 
Ford, Philip, 372-376. 
Fox, George, 72-77, 122, 123, 

132, 169, 173,197,215,365. 
Friendship, dangers of, 229. 

Game on the Delaware, 232. 
Gaunt, Elizabeth, 260. 
Gentry of England, 43. 
GooKiN, Colonel Charles, 377. 



387 



Hampden, John, 36. 
Hart, Charles Henry, 17. 
Hat, anecdote of, with James II., 

123. 
Head, J. Merrick, 14. 
Hemskirck, Egbert, 18. 
Hicks, Penn's controversy with, 

170, 171. 

Indians, Penn's treaty with, 242- 
247 ; treatment of, by Penn, 
211. 

Indulgence, Declaration of, by 
Charles II., 166, 173 ; Penn 
writes about it, 267 ; an in- 
dulgence by James II., 280; 
another by him, 291. 

Ives, Penn's controversy with, 
152. 

James II., Penn explains Quaker 
faith to, 123 ; professes lib- 
erality, 255 ; releases Quakers 
from prison, 255, 280, 290 ; 
his word for liberty, 281 ; ilies 
to France, 292. 

Jeffreys, Judge, 257. 

Jesuits, 296. 

Kinsale, Penn goes to, 102. 
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 19. 

Labadie, De, 183. 
Laud, Archbishop, 36. 
Lawton, Charlewood, 264, 280. 
Leslie criticises the Quakers, 

122. 
Liberty, Anglo-Saxon, 32. 
, Religious, Penn devotes 

himself to, 122 ; Penn writes 

on, 160, 189. 
Lloyd, David, 368-370, 378. 



388 



Lloyd, Thomas, 254. 
Locke, John, 263. 
Loe, Thomas, 96, 199. 
Logan, James, 349, 371, 377. 
London in Penn's time, 113. 
Louis XIX., secret treaty with 

Charles II., 166. 
LuTTRELL, Narcissus, 300, 326, 

330. 

Macaulay, Lord, 258-260, 303, 

330. 
Magdalen College, 287, 288. 
Markham, William, 208. 
Maxims, Penn's, 26. 
Mead, William, arrested with 

Penn, 141. 
Middle Ages, the, effect of, 77 ; 

religion of, 78-81. 
Miracles in the Middle Ages, 

79- 
Monmouth, Duke of, 257. 
Music in Penn's time, 118. 

Navy, the, in Admiral Penn's 
time, 44, 46-48. 

New Jersey, 200-202; proprie- 
torship in, abolished, 364. 

" No Cross, No Crown," 132. 

NoRRis, Isaac, 375. 

Gates, Titus, 186. 

Oaths, Treatise of, by Penn, 22, 

175-178. 
Oxford in Penn's time, 62-64. 

Parliament, Regulation of, by 
James II., 290. 

Penn, Admiral, 39-57 ; rapid rise 
in the navy, 45 ; pursues Prince 
Rupert, 49 ; in the Dutch wars 
of Cromwell, 50; treachery of, 



51, 52; in the Tower, 53; 
friend of the Duke of York, 
54 ; Pepys's description of him, 
55; Clarendon's description, 
56 ; impeached, 56 ; fortune of, 
57- 

Penn, Dennis, 339. 

, Giles, 43, 45. 

, Hannah, 339. 

, John, 339. 

, John, the American, 349. 

, Lady, 39, 40. 

, Letitia, 339. 

, Margaret, 339. 

, Mrs., visits James II., of 

France, 333. 

, Richard, 339. 

, Springett, 339. 

, Thomas, 339. 

, William, portraits of him, 

1 2-20 ; his character and 
traits, 20-30; birth, 31, 38; 
his mother, 39; ancestry, 41, 
42, 43 ; early political influ- 
ences, 58, 59 ; early religious 
influences, 60 ; goes to col- 
lege, 61, 65 ; his use of " thee" 
and " thou," 68 ; reasons for 
joining the Quakers, 95 ; re- 
volts against surplices at Ox- 
ford, 96 ; expelled from col- 
lege, 97 ; turned out of doors by 
his father, 98 ; travels in France 
and Italy, 98, 99 ; fights in 
Paris, 100 ; studies under Amy- 
rault, 100 ; studies law, loi ; 
goes to Ireland, 102; becomes a 
soldier, 103 ; joins the Quakers, 
104; first imprisonment, 107, 
108; turned out of doors 
again, no; protests against 
obscenity, 115; becomes a 



preacher, 121 ; retains his 
sword, 123; becomes a con- 
troversialist, 124; goes to 
court, 125 ; controversy with 
Vincent, 126 ; writes " The 
Sandy Foundation," 126-130 ; 
imprisoned for " Sandy Foun- 
dation," 131 ; writes "No 
Cross, No Crown," 132 ; writes 
" Innocency with her Open 
Face," 135 ; released from 
prison, 136 ; goes again to 
Ireland, 138 ; reconciled to his 
father, 140 ; arrested in Grace- 
church meeting, 140; defends 
trial by jury, 142-146; released 
by his father, 149 ; death of 
his father, 1 50 ; becomes rich, 
151 ; controversy with Ives, 
152 ; attacks vice-chancellor 
of Oxford, 153, 154 ; sus- 
pected of being a Jesuit, 154, 
155 ; arrested as dangerous to 
the government, 156-161 ; goes 
to Holland, 162; marries, 
166; traditions of, as a preacher, 
168 ; controversy with Hicks, 
170; secures release of Fox, 
175 ; his " Treatise of Oaths," 
175-178 ; argues again on re- 
ligious liberty, 178, 179; con- 
troversy with Baxter, 179 ; goes 
to Holland, 181-184; appeals 
to Parliament for affirmation 
instead of oath, 185 ; supports 
Sydney for Parliament, 192 ; 
argues that Protestants should 
unite, 194 ; proposes new test 
oath, 195 ; asks for the grant 
of Pennsylvania, 197 ; first 
suggestions of Pennsylvania, 
199 ; his connection with New 



389 



INDEX 



Jersey, 200 ; vast size of Penn- 
sylvania, 206 ; charter of 
Pennsylvania, 207 ; obtains 
Delaware, 208; sends out 
Markham, 208 ; advertises for 
settlers, 209 ; his motives, 210 ; 
treatment of the Indians, 211 ; 
lays out Philadelphia, 213, 
214 ; resists Wilkinson's de- 
mand for more liberty, 215 ; 
consults with Sydney about 
constitution, 217 ; consults 
with many others, 220 ; nu- 
merous drafts for Constitution, 
221-226; advanced ideas of 
government, 225-228 ; starts 
for the province, 229, 230; 
arrives in the Delaware, 231 ; 
visits the site of Philadelphia, 
234 ; goes to Maryland, 236 ; 
passes the winter at Chester, 
237 ; delighted with his prov- 
ince, 238 ; his famous treaty 
with the Indians, 242-247 ; 
travels to the Susquehanna, 
248 ; his letter to Free Society 
of Traders, 248 ; returns to 
England, 250 ; takes up lib- 
erty of conscience again, 253 ; 
losses by the province, 254; 
becomes a courtier, 256; his 
description of Monmouth's re- 
bellion, 258 ; accused of ex- 
torting money for Taunton 
maids, 259; attends the exe- 
cution of Cornish and Gaunt, 
259, 260 ; a pardon obtainer, 
261 ; difficulty of his position 
with the king, 261 ; his work 
as a courtier, 262, 263 ; ex- 
travagance of his life as a 
courtier, 265 ; another journey 



to Holland, 270; visits the 
Prince of Orange, 271 ; losses 
by Pennsylvania, 277 ; en- 
courages grape-growing in 
Pennsylvania, 278 ; supports 
Declaration of Indulgence, 
280 ; favors abolishing the 
test laws, 283 ; his anonymous 
pamphlet in support of James 
II., 283 ; supports James II. 's 
Declaration of Indulgence, 
286 ; believed in James II., 
286; inconsistency to his po- 
sition, 289 ; tries to win Law- 
ton to the king, 293; his 
association with Jeffreys, 294 ; 
given a chance to explain him- 
self, 296 ; replies to Popple's 
letter, 298; position in the 
revolution of 1688, 302-305 ; 
arrested on suspicion of treason, 
305 ; his opinion of the Tol- 
eration Act, 307 ; accused by 
Macaulay of plotting, 309 ; re- 
ceives a letter from James II., 
310 ; prepares to go to Penn- 
sylvania, 313 ; attempt to ar- 
rest him, 314; goes into 
hiding, 314 ; appeals to Henry 
Sydney, 318; inclines to turn 
state's evidence, 322 ; ne- 
gotiations with the govern- 
ment, 323-326 ; goes to 
France, 326 ; seizure of the 
government of Pennsylvania, 
327 ; negotiates again with the 
government, 328 ; set free at 
last, 329 ; still suspected of 
treason, 331 ; his occupations 
while in hiding, 332 ; his ar- 
gument for arbitration, 333 ; 
death of his wife, 334 ; un- 



INDEX 



popularity in Pennsylvania, 
335 ; unpopularity among the 
Quakers in England, 335 ; his 
government returned to him, 
337 ; preaching journeys, 338 ; 
second marriage, 339 ; pro- 
poses union of the colonies, 
341 ; sails for Pennsylvania, 
342 ; confused methods of gov- 
ernment, 344 ; attempt at des- 
potism, 345 ; arrives in the 
province, 348 ; puts down the 
pirates, 350 ; enjoys himself at 
Pennsbury, 352 ; his life there, 
353 ; visits the Susquehanna 
again, 355 ; visits Maryland, 

356 ; his losses by the province, 

357 ; obliged to return to Eng- 
land, 358 ; gives the people a 
constitution, 358; becomes a 
courtier under Queen Anne, 
362 ; deeply in debt, 364 ; tries 
to sell his government, 365 ; 
violent address against him 
from the province, 369; re- 
action in his favor, 370; deal- 
ings wfith Philip Ford, 372- 
376 ; imprisoned for debt, 374 ; 
dismisses Evans, 376 ; reaction 
in his favor again, 378 ; hope 
from a silver-mine, 380 ; first 
stroke of paralysis, 381 ; mind 
impaired, 382 ; great improve- 
ments in Pennsylvania, 383 ; 
last years, 384. 

, William, Jr., 339 ; becomes 

dissipated, 360 ; sent to Penn- 
sylvania, 361, 366; returns 
from Pennsylvania, 367. 

Pennington, Isaac, 164. 

Pennsbury, 253, 352, 354. 

Penns-Lodge, 43. 



Pennsylvania, origin of, 197 ; 
boundary disputes of, 205 ; 
vast size of, 206; charter of, 
207 ; constitution of, by Penn, 
221, 226; condition of, on 
Penn's arrival, 231 ; seizure of 
the government of, 327. 

Peter the Great, of Russia, 340. 

Petre, Father, 291. 

Philadelphia, origin of name, 
213; streets of, as laid out by 
Penn, 235 ; building of, 239, 
240. 

Piracy in Pennsylvania, 350. 

Place, Francis, 15. 

Plague in London, loi. 

Plot, popish, 186. 

Popish plot, 186. 

Popple's letter to Penn, 297. 

Portraits of Penn, 12-20. 

Presbyterians, 33. 

Preston, Lord, 312, 317, 319, 320. 

Proud, Robert, 17. 

Puritans, 32, 33^ 36. 

Quakers, the, dress of, 21 ; eccen- 
tricities of, 69 ; doctrines of, 70, 
71 ; objection to politics, 72; 
objection to war, 72 ; the return 
to primitive Christianity, 85, 
86; legislation against, 87, 88- 
91 ; heroism of, 89, 90; philan- 
thropy and liberalism of, 92 ; 
distinguished men among, 93 ; 
rationalism of, 94; thirteen 
hundred released by James 

n., 255. 

Quarry, Colonel, 349. 

Ranters, 76, 82. 

Raynal, his opinion of the 
treaty with the Indians, 246. 



INDEX 



Reformation, the, 32, 81, 84. 
Richardson, Jonathan, 20. 
Rights, Bill of, 309. 
Robinson, Sir John, puts Penn 

in Newgate, 159. 
Roundheads, 31. 
Royalists, 31, 35. 

Sachse, Julius F., 18. 

•' Sandy Foundation, The," 126- 

130. 
Seekers, 82, 83. 
Ship-money, 36. 
Slate-roof house, the, 349. 
Small-pox on Penn's ship, 230. 
Springett, Guli, 163-166; visits 

James II. in France, ^^^. 
Stuart, Major W. D., 14. 

, Robert, of Coltness, 274. 

Sunderland, Lord, 275. 
Surplice, rebellion against, 65. 
Susquehanna, expeditions to, 

248, 355- 
Sword, Penn retains his, 123. 
Sydney, Algernon, 192, 193, 

217-219. 
, Henry, 276, 318, 322- 

324- 



TiLLOTSON, Dr., 262. 
Toleration Act, the, 306. 
Traders, Free Society of, 248. 
Treaty, the, with the Indians, 

242-247. 
Turner, Mrs., 40, 41. 

ViCKRis, Richard, 253. 
Vincent, Penn's controversy 

with, 126. 
Voltaire, his opinion of the 

treaty with the Indians, 245, 

246. 

Waldenses, the, 86. 

Wanstead, Penn's life at, 58, 59. 

Waterhouse, Alfred, 18. 

West, Benjamin, 20, 243. 

William III. argues against 
Penn, 271 ; his ideas of tol- 
eration, 273 ; comes to Eng- 
land, 292 ; becomes less pop- 
ular in England, 313; dies, 
361. 

Witchcraft, 79. 

Wood, Rebecca, 355. 

York, Duke of, 166 174, 208. 



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